Chapter 1. Introduction
This chapter covers
- Introducing basic types of spatial data
- What is geoprocessing?
- Using QGIS
Humans have been making maps for far longer than we’ve been writing, and even the famed Lascaux caves in France have a star map on their walls. We know that ancient peoples all over the world used maps, including the Babylonians, Greeks, and Chinese. The art of cartography has evolved over the millennia, from cave walls as mediums to clay tablets, parchment, paper, and now digital. Maps have also gotten much more detailed, as well as accurate, as technology has been developed and improved. In fact, most of us would probably have a hard time recognizing the most primitive maps as maps at all.