**4. A gradual global awakening**

Describing and discussing state maps and mapmaking processes and patterns into much of the first half of the last century was much different than the last half [4, 5]. Political maps were often standard in projections, content, topics, symbols and legends. World political maps showing national boundaries were common as were those showing colonies and results of conflicts. Most changes were about territories and land boundaries. Very few changes were about oceans as they were basically empty spaces with a little depiction of valuable natural resources for minerals and fishing or conflicting boundary claims and areas of regional military conflict except in Europe, Asia and the Pacific. For those in the geography community, maps in textbooks were basic reference maps that showed the names of countries, location of major cities and major physical features such as rivers, mountains, deserts and climates, vegetation types and soil categories. In economic subjects, again the topics were fairly standard: major agricultural regions, mining sites and industrial centers and population numbers and densities. In what today one would call the Global South countries, maps of incomes were usually per capita GNP, which showed wide gaps between the "developed and underdeveloped regions" (these were the labels used). Even a casual examination of research articles and elementary, high school and university textbooks published before 1960 revealed more uniformity than creativity in content. Geography classes using maps at that time were focused on description more than interpretation and were more concerned about what might be called "standardized reference materials" about basic content than any alternative projections or topics or themes that might be termed thought-breaking and creative. Also, of note is that Africa was usually the last world region discussed in world regional texts. Australia was considered before Africa. Oceans, covering three-quarters of the planet, were ignored.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, former European colonies became independent and adopted new names; they were also the sites of conflicts, some serious, in African, Asian and Caribbean regions. Accompanying these changes were changes in the human face of the world, beginning with some new terminology and topics previously unstudied or understudied. These included maps of rich and poor countries or developed and underdeveloped countries or developed and less developed countries. The labeling of regions changed. New topics such as "economic developments in former colonies" were addressed as were "intra-national and inter-regional conflicts," and "emerging resource-rich regions producing oil, iron and other minerals for the developed worlds." Economic aid for literacy programs, disease outbreaks, new state infrastructure and urban development presented challenges to those preparing maps for the private sector, for states, for schools at all levels, and for a public that was slowly experiencing the end of colonialism and the beginnings of globalization.

Other changes in the cartographic realm were also occurring at this time. Among the changes where how Antarctica was being viewed. The Treaty of Antarctica in 1959 resulted in the carving up of the spaces for scientific study by nation-states. Soon thereafter additional maps showed the expansion of territorial coastal waters accompanying United Nations Law of the Sea negotiations in 1982. These negotiations were related to offshore fishing and oil and gas exploration, the carving up of sea spaces such as the North Sea, measuring pollution levels and defining areas of water conflict. Maps were increasingly being used to show the spread of diseases and tourism sites and cruise ship networks for emerging tourist economies. Three additional groups that emerged as major producers and users of maps for their own constituents were the corporate and environmental sectors and the United Nations. An integral part of the increased globalization efforts of many small and large corporations was to use maps showing the location of consumers or markets as well as potential investments in agriculture, industrial development and especially energy economies. Advertising informed many consumers about the locations, new countries and their pronunciation, profitable investments and new markets. Environmental and conversation

#### *Perspective Chapter: Creative Mapping and Mapping Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102729*

organizations with international contributors expressed global concerns about shrinking natural habitats for endangered wildlife, pollution levels, global warming impacts and human welfare. All used maps to inform their supporters about the need for increased planetary awareness. The United Nations during the 1960s and 1970s was becoming heavily involved in a wide variety of human welfare and human conditions, especially related to issues about refugees, poverty, literacy, political conflicts (especially Southeast Asia), gender disparity and the spread of diseases. All these efforts contributed to a slow global awakening of places heretofore unknown to many residents of the planet.

Many of this human development and planetary awareness efforts included creative maps, not only by cartographers but also by those with training in the arts and photography, computer graphics and the visual humanities. They collectively demonstrated the importance of an emerging "popular cartography" that went beyond the construction of maps primarily for state purposes. Popular journals like the *National Geographic Magazine* were beginning to publish articles that addressed global and planetary issues along with photos and maps of places, ecosystems and the human condition that had seldom appeared to global visual audiences previously. Visual learning with photography and maps was on the rise. The interest and popularity in these topics generated more research on these topics as well as special television programs, global tourism, international NGOs with caring missions and United Nations efforts to improve human/environmental worlds. Maps were integral to many of these initiatives.

Those awakening efforts continued into the 1970s and 1980s with increased calls for a greater understanding of what was happening in many world regions as well as new topics and approaches to traditional topics [1, 6–11]. "Globalization" emerged as a term that replaced "international relations" in many academic, governmental and nongovernmental circles and discourses. Trade was no longer only a topic of interest between rich and poor nations. Health, gender variations, education and welfare programs were depicting concerns for human and humane conditions: massive rural-urban migration, rampant population growth in rural and urban areas and loans for a variety of human development initiatives. These were at the forefront of world regional and global planning. These topics began to be addressed in scholarly journals of the social sciences and what today we call the environmental sciences. Maps were being included in these presentations to show "what was happening where." The emergence of new states on the world political map, the appearance of new topics about human welfare and the beginning of environmental awareness were associated with an awakening of scholarly and policy worlds about topics that had long been silent.
