“A map has no vocabulary, no lexicon of precise meanings. It communicates in lines, hues, tones, coded symbols, and empty spaces, much like music. Nor does a map have its own voice. It is many-tongued, a chorus reciting centuries of accumulated knowledge in echoed chants. A map provides no answers. It only suggests where to look: Discover this, reexamine that, put one thing in relation to another, orient yourself, begin here… Sometimes a map speaks in terms of physical geography, but just as often it muses on the jagged terrain of the heart, the distant vistas of memory, or the fantastic landscapes of dreams.”

― Miles Harvey, The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime

Flat Earth society aside, ( I refuse to even acknowledge those folks) I’m still puzzled how the most connected society in history has such little working knowledge of geography. According to a National Geographic survey “only 17 percent of young adults in the United States could find Afghanistan on a map”. However, geography is larger than just finding places on a map; its understanding spatial relationships in everything we interact with. That glass of wine can, through taste, provide spatial information on the region the grape was grown, the particular climate for that region and even the political situation when the grape was harvested. Spatial thinking was the earliest cognitive method of survival for humans who needed to find the optimal location for food. Vision, hearing, and even taste allows us to learn about our surroundings. The National Geographic Society defines geographic literacy as “the understanding of human and natural systems and geographic and systematic decision-making”. I was a Geography major, and I can’t even count the times I heard quips like “haven’t we discovered all the Earth yet?”, or “so, did you memorize the capitals of all the U.S States?” Well, no and no.

A map doesn’t provide answers like Miles Harvey pointed out; rather it frames the best questions to ask. What happens to the course of a river in Yellowstone Park after Wolves were re-introduced?  Well, the river changed course due to the ecological changes brought about by the wolves.  Geo-literacy has little to do with providing answers with maps, it has much more to do with systems thinking. A geographically literate society will be better equipped to think holistically when solving problems that reside in any space.