NCERT Textbook: Locating Places on the Earth | Geography for UPSC CSE PDF Download

 Page 1


7
1 – Locating Places on the Earth
Locating Places  
on the Earth
CHAPTER
1
The globe of the Earth stands in space, made up of water, 
earth, fire and air and is spherical. ... It is surrounded by 
all creatures, terrestrial as well as aquatic.
—  Aryabha?a (about 500 CE)
1. What is a map and how do 
we use it? What are its main 
components?
2. What are coordinates? How can 
latitude and longitude be used to 
mark any location on the Earth? 
3. How are local time and standard 
time related to longitude?
The Big 
Questions
1-100724-v9.indd   7 1-100724-v9.indd   7 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
Page 2


7
1 – Locating Places on the Earth
Locating Places  
on the Earth
CHAPTER
1
The globe of the Earth stands in space, made up of water, 
earth, fire and air and is spherical. ... It is surrounded by 
all creatures, terrestrial as well as aquatic.
—  Aryabha?a (about 500 CE)
1. What is a map and how do 
we use it? What are its main 
components?
2. What are coordinates? How can 
latitude and longitude be used to 
mark any location on the Earth? 
3. How are local time and standard 
time related to longitude?
The Big 
Questions
1-100724-v9.indd   7 1-100724-v9.indd   7 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
8
Exploring Society: India and Beyond  
India and the World: Land and the People
Imagine that you are visiting a city for the first time. How 
would you find the places you want to visit? You might ask 
a local person for help, or you might look at a map of the 
city. In previous grades, you learnt a little about maps, and 
in this chapter, we will study them in more detail. 
Let us play a game. Examine the map of this small city  
(Fig. 1.1). Imagine that you just got off a train at the railway 
station, and you want to visit the bank marked on the 
map. Which way would you go? Are there other possible 
ways? Can you locate the public garden, the school and 
the museum? If you want to proceed from the bank to the 
market, which way will you go? This is where a map comes 
in handy!
A map is like a treasure guide; it shows you where things 
are and how to get to them. Notice the four arrows in the top 
right corner of the map; we will soon see how they point to 
some specific directions and make maps even more helpful.
Fig. 1.1. A map of an imaginary small city.
1-100724-v9.indd   8 1-100724-v9.indd   8 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
Page 3


7
1 – Locating Places on the Earth
Locating Places  
on the Earth
CHAPTER
1
The globe of the Earth stands in space, made up of water, 
earth, fire and air and is spherical. ... It is surrounded by 
all creatures, terrestrial as well as aquatic.
—  Aryabha?a (about 500 CE)
1. What is a map and how do 
we use it? What are its main 
components?
2. What are coordinates? How can 
latitude and longitude be used to 
mark any location on the Earth? 
3. How are local time and standard 
time related to longitude?
The Big 
Questions
1-100724-v9.indd   7 1-100724-v9.indd   7 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
8
Exploring Society: India and Beyond  
India and the World: Land and the People
Imagine that you are visiting a city for the first time. How 
would you find the places you want to visit? You might ask 
a local person for help, or you might look at a map of the 
city. In previous grades, you learnt a little about maps, and 
in this chapter, we will study them in more detail. 
Let us play a game. Examine the map of this small city  
(Fig. 1.1). Imagine that you just got off a train at the railway 
station, and you want to visit the bank marked on the 
map. Which way would you go? Are there other possible 
ways? Can you locate the public garden, the school and 
the museum? If you want to proceed from the bank to the 
market, which way will you go? This is where a map comes 
in handy!
A map is like a treasure guide; it shows you where things 
are and how to get to them. Notice the four arrows in the top 
right corner of the map; we will soon see how they point to 
some specific directions and make maps even more helpful.
Fig. 1.1. A map of an imaginary small city.
1-100724-v9.indd   8 1-100724-v9.indd   8 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
9
1 – Locating Places on the Earth
LET’S EXPLORE
 Æ On the map in Fig. 1.1 given on page 8 —
1. Mark the hospital. 
2. What is the meaning of the blue-coloured areas?
3. Which is farther away from the railway station —  
the school, the Nagar Panchayat or the public garden?
 Æ As a class activity, form groups of three or four students 
each. Let each group try to draw a map of your school 
and some of the streets or roads that lead to it, and a few 
neighbouring buildings. At the end, compare all the maps 
and discuss.
A Map and Its Components
From this simple example, we understand that a map is a 
representation, or a drawing, of some area — it may be a 
small area (a village, a town, etc.), a bigger area (say, your 
district or state), or a very large area like India or even the 
whole world. In a map, you look at the surface as if you are 
viewing it from the top.
An atlas is a book or collection of maps.
As you will discover, there are several kinds of maps —
 ? physical maps, which mainly show some natural 
features such as mountains, oceans and rivers (see an 
example in Fig. 5.2 in this textbook)
 ? political maps, which show details of countries or 
states, boundaries, cities, etc. (for instance, a map of 
India with all its States, Union Territories and their 
capitals)
 ? thematic maps, with a specific kind of information 
(examples include Fig. 6.3 and Fig. 8.1 in this textbook).
In addition, there are three important components of 
maps—distance, direction and symbols. You have already 
1-100724-v9.indd   9 1-100724-v9.indd   9 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
Page 4


7
1 – Locating Places on the Earth
Locating Places  
on the Earth
CHAPTER
1
The globe of the Earth stands in space, made up of water, 
earth, fire and air and is spherical. ... It is surrounded by 
all creatures, terrestrial as well as aquatic.
—  Aryabha?a (about 500 CE)
1. What is a map and how do 
we use it? What are its main 
components?
2. What are coordinates? How can 
latitude and longitude be used to 
mark any location on the Earth? 
3. How are local time and standard 
time related to longitude?
The Big 
Questions
1-100724-v9.indd   7 1-100724-v9.indd   7 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
8
Exploring Society: India and Beyond  
India and the World: Land and the People
Imagine that you are visiting a city for the first time. How 
would you find the places you want to visit? You might ask 
a local person for help, or you might look at a map of the 
city. In previous grades, you learnt a little about maps, and 
in this chapter, we will study them in more detail. 
Let us play a game. Examine the map of this small city  
(Fig. 1.1). Imagine that you just got off a train at the railway 
station, and you want to visit the bank marked on the 
map. Which way would you go? Are there other possible 
ways? Can you locate the public garden, the school and 
the museum? If you want to proceed from the bank to the 
market, which way will you go? This is where a map comes 
in handy!
A map is like a treasure guide; it shows you where things 
are and how to get to them. Notice the four arrows in the top 
right corner of the map; we will soon see how they point to 
some specific directions and make maps even more helpful.
Fig. 1.1. A map of an imaginary small city.
1-100724-v9.indd   8 1-100724-v9.indd   8 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
9
1 – Locating Places on the Earth
LET’S EXPLORE
 Æ On the map in Fig. 1.1 given on page 8 —
1. Mark the hospital. 
2. What is the meaning of the blue-coloured areas?
3. Which is farther away from the railway station —  
the school, the Nagar Panchayat or the public garden?
 Æ As a class activity, form groups of three or four students 
each. Let each group try to draw a map of your school 
and some of the streets or roads that lead to it, and a few 
neighbouring buildings. At the end, compare all the maps 
and discuss.
A Map and Its Components
From this simple example, we understand that a map is a 
representation, or a drawing, of some area — it may be a 
small area (a village, a town, etc.), a bigger area (say, your 
district or state), or a very large area like India or even the 
whole world. In a map, you look at the surface as if you are 
viewing it from the top.
An atlas is a book or collection of maps.
As you will discover, there are several kinds of maps —
 ? physical maps, which mainly show some natural 
features such as mountains, oceans and rivers (see an 
example in Fig. 5.2 in this textbook)
 ? political maps, which show details of countries or 
states, boundaries, cities, etc. (for instance, a map of 
India with all its States, Union Territories and their 
capitals)
 ? thematic maps, with a specific kind of information 
(examples include Fig. 6.3 and Fig. 8.1 in this textbook).
In addition, there are three important components of 
maps—distance, direction and symbols. You have already 
1-100724-v9.indd   9 1-100724-v9.indd   9 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
10
Exploring Society: India and Beyond  
India and the World: Land and the People
experienced the first two while navigating the map in Fig. 
1.1. Let us now define them more precisely.
Have you ever wondered how a huge place can fit on a small 
piece of paper? It is all thanks to the map’s scale. Let us go 
back to our map of a small city (Fig. 1.1). Each centimetre 
on the map, as printed here, represents a certain distance 
on the ground — let us suppose it is 500 metres; we say that 
the scale is 1 cm = 500 m. Now, turn to the map of India in  
Fig. 5.2 in Chapter 5 of this textbook. The scale is repre-
sented in the bottom left corner by a ruler with ‘500’ written 
above its length and ‘km’ on the side. It simply means that 
this ruler, which measures 2.5 cm in the printed map, 
corresponds to 500 kilometres on the ground.   
So, the actual distance between two points represented on 
the map depends on the scale that the map is using.
LET’S EXPLORE
 Æ Draw a simple map of a school’s playground. Let us 
assume it is a rectangle, 40 m in length and 30 m in width. 
Draw it precisely with your ruler on a scale of 1 cm = 10 m.
 Æ Now measure the diagonal of the rectangle. How many 
centimetres do you get? Using the scale, calculate the real 
length of the playground’s diagonal, in metres.
Let us return to the four arrows at the top right 
of the small city’s map. They point to four 
directions, which are north, at the top, and, 
moving clockwise, east, south and west. 
These are called the cardinal directions, 
also cardinal points. Other than these, 
intermediate directions are also used — 
northeast (NE), southeast (SE), southwest 
(SW) and northwest (NW). Most maps 
simply have an arrow marked with the 
letter ‘N’, which points to the north direction. 
North
South
East West
Northwest
Southwest
Northeast
Southeast
1-100724-v9.indd   10 1-100724-v9.indd   10 11-Jul-24   4:20:21 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:21 PM
Page 5


7
1 – Locating Places on the Earth
Locating Places  
on the Earth
CHAPTER
1
The globe of the Earth stands in space, made up of water, 
earth, fire and air and is spherical. ... It is surrounded by 
all creatures, terrestrial as well as aquatic.
—  Aryabha?a (about 500 CE)
1. What is a map and how do 
we use it? What are its main 
components?
2. What are coordinates? How can 
latitude and longitude be used to 
mark any location on the Earth? 
3. How are local time and standard 
time related to longitude?
The Big 
Questions
1-100724-v9.indd   7 1-100724-v9.indd   7 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
8
Exploring Society: India and Beyond  
India and the World: Land and the People
Imagine that you are visiting a city for the first time. How 
would you find the places you want to visit? You might ask 
a local person for help, or you might look at a map of the 
city. In previous grades, you learnt a little about maps, and 
in this chapter, we will study them in more detail. 
Let us play a game. Examine the map of this small city  
(Fig. 1.1). Imagine that you just got off a train at the railway 
station, and you want to visit the bank marked on the 
map. Which way would you go? Are there other possible 
ways? Can you locate the public garden, the school and 
the museum? If you want to proceed from the bank to the 
market, which way will you go? This is where a map comes 
in handy!
A map is like a treasure guide; it shows you where things 
are and how to get to them. Notice the four arrows in the top 
right corner of the map; we will soon see how they point to 
some specific directions and make maps even more helpful.
Fig. 1.1. A map of an imaginary small city.
1-100724-v9.indd   8 1-100724-v9.indd   8 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
9
1 – Locating Places on the Earth
LET’S EXPLORE
 Æ On the map in Fig. 1.1 given on page 8 —
1. Mark the hospital. 
2. What is the meaning of the blue-coloured areas?
3. Which is farther away from the railway station —  
the school, the Nagar Panchayat or the public garden?
 Æ As a class activity, form groups of three or four students 
each. Let each group try to draw a map of your school 
and some of the streets or roads that lead to it, and a few 
neighbouring buildings. At the end, compare all the maps 
and discuss.
A Map and Its Components
From this simple example, we understand that a map is a 
representation, or a drawing, of some area — it may be a 
small area (a village, a town, etc.), a bigger area (say, your 
district or state), or a very large area like India or even the 
whole world. In a map, you look at the surface as if you are 
viewing it from the top.
An atlas is a book or collection of maps.
As you will discover, there are several kinds of maps —
 ? physical maps, which mainly show some natural 
features such as mountains, oceans and rivers (see an 
example in Fig. 5.2 in this textbook)
 ? political maps, which show details of countries or 
states, boundaries, cities, etc. (for instance, a map of 
India with all its States, Union Territories and their 
capitals)
 ? thematic maps, with a specific kind of information 
(examples include Fig. 6.3 and Fig. 8.1 in this textbook).
In addition, there are three important components of 
maps—distance, direction and symbols. You have already 
1-100724-v9.indd   9 1-100724-v9.indd   9 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:20 PM
10
Exploring Society: India and Beyond  
India and the World: Land and the People
experienced the first two while navigating the map in Fig. 
1.1. Let us now define them more precisely.
Have you ever wondered how a huge place can fit on a small 
piece of paper? It is all thanks to the map’s scale. Let us go 
back to our map of a small city (Fig. 1.1). Each centimetre 
on the map, as printed here, represents a certain distance 
on the ground — let us suppose it is 500 metres; we say that 
the scale is 1 cm = 500 m. Now, turn to the map of India in  
Fig. 5.2 in Chapter 5 of this textbook. The scale is repre-
sented in the bottom left corner by a ruler with ‘500’ written 
above its length and ‘km’ on the side. It simply means that 
this ruler, which measures 2.5 cm in the printed map, 
corresponds to 500 kilometres on the ground.   
So, the actual distance between two points represented on 
the map depends on the scale that the map is using.
LET’S EXPLORE
 Æ Draw a simple map of a school’s playground. Let us 
assume it is a rectangle, 40 m in length and 30 m in width. 
Draw it precisely with your ruler on a scale of 1 cm = 10 m.
 Æ Now measure the diagonal of the rectangle. How many 
centimetres do you get? Using the scale, calculate the real 
length of the playground’s diagonal, in metres.
Let us return to the four arrows at the top right 
of the small city’s map. They point to four 
directions, which are north, at the top, and, 
moving clockwise, east, south and west. 
These are called the cardinal directions, 
also cardinal points. Other than these, 
intermediate directions are also used — 
northeast (NE), southeast (SE), southwest 
(SW) and northwest (NW). Most maps 
simply have an arrow marked with the 
letter ‘N’, which points to the north direction. 
North
South
East West
Northwest
Southwest
Northeast
Southeast
1-100724-v9.indd   10 1-100724-v9.indd   10 11-Jul-24   4:20:21 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:21 PM
11
1 – Locating Places on the Earth
LET’S EXPLORE
 Æ Consider the map of the small city again. Identify the 
correct and incorrect statements in the list below:
1. The market is north of the hospital.
2. The museum is southeast of the bank.
3. The railway station is northwest of the hospital.
4. The lake is northwest of the apartment blocks.
 Æ Taking your school as the starting point, do you know 
approximately in which cardinal direction your home is 
located? Discuss with your teacher and your parents.
Symbols are another important component of maps. Our 
map has small drawings of actual buildings and a few  
other elements, but there would not be enough space on the 
map of a large city or a country to draw them all. Instead, 
a symbol is used to represent these features — symbols for 
different kinds of buildings (for instance a railway station, 
a school, a post office), for roads and railway lines, and for 
natural elements such as a river, a pond or a forest. In that 
way, numerous details can be shown in the limited space 
available on a map.
To make maps more easily understood by a variety of users, 
map makers use specific symbols. Different countries use 
different sets of symbols. The Survey of India, a government 
body, has fixed a set of symbols for maps of India (or parts 
of India). A small selection of them is shown in Fig. 1.2 on 
page 12.
 LET’S EXPLORE
Draw a rough map of your locality or your village, including 
your home, school and a few other important landmarks. Show 
the cardinal directions and use a few of the symbols shown in 
Fig. 1.2 on page 12 to mark some important features.
1-100724-v9.indd   11 1-100724-v9.indd   11 11-Jul-24   4:20:21 PM 11-Jul-24   4:20:21 PM