Visualizing a Map of Walter Christaller, Poland 1941: Part I, Benchmarking the Map

Abstract

One complex system from the early 20th century in the history of geography is the development, by Walter Christaller, of a theory of settlement locations: central place theory. The communication of his ideas is in the printed format of the times. There are black and white maps of complex systems of pattern; they tell one story. What might they look like, however, when recast using contemporary capability? How might this capability expand the research frontier? This sequence of images and text examines a single map of Christaller, from a 1941 document, and brings it into the virtual reality of Google Earth®. When the reader downloads the zipped file, the power of the Internet is harnessed to permit him/her to replicate the results of the article while reading it and to experiment with related ideas at the same time. Such capability is an important aspect of scientific communication.