Geography & Earth
Basic

Map Scale

Ratio of map distance to real-world distance.

Formula

Scale=map distanceground distance\text{Scale} = \frac{\text{map distance}}{\text{ground distance}}

Variables

mapDistance on map
groundReal distance

Example

On a 1:50 000 map, 1 cm represents 500 m on the ground.

Did You Know?

A 1:24,000 scale means one inch on the map equals 24,000 inches — 2,000 feet — on the ground.

mapscalecartography