MAPPEMONDE 4/95

Without summaries


Jean-Pierre CHEVALIER. Pupils, maps and territories, diversity and complementarity of approaches from various disciplines. (4 fig.)

To the pupil, a map is at the same time a tool, a trace and a sign. To the observer, it is also a concrete object, a medium, inside of an information system on space. It is the symbolic translation of reality and a concrete mediation. It enables the materialization of the mental work implied by this reality, but perception is always problematic to interpret. Geographers, cogniticians and semiologists, all of them more or less didacticians, have analysed sketch maps made by children as to assess their cartographic skills, the way they perceive space and how their mind works; they cannot ignore the contribution of these disciplines to their own research.


Françoise GOURMELON, Frédéric BIORET et Louis BRIGAND. GIS and land use: the Isle of Ouessant (Brittany, France) from 1952 to 1992. (3 fig.)

The land use diachronic comparison over 40 years confirms land-cover changes which affect 72% of the isle of Ouessant (Brittany, France). Disappearance of cultivated areas, spatial dynamics of grazed areas from coastal fringe to the center of the isle and the extension of fallows over 42% of the space are quantitatively analyzed through GIS technologies.


Cécile CHOMBARD-GAUDIN. Dates and places: twinnings in Burgundy, Languedoc-Roussillon and Limousin. (5 fig.)

A survey on twinning dates and on precise location of European partners allowed us to emphasize very different rythms of frequency depending on regions on the one hand, and significant polarisation in the choices of twin cities, on the other hand.


Christine VOIRON-CANICIO. Morphology of a pattern of disseminated European cities. (7 fig.)

Three morphological transformations: the opening, the closing and the skeleton are used in order to describe a set of points representing the location of European cities. Each of them provides structural information about the size, the shape of the points and the distance between them.


Céline ROZENBLAT. Web of disseminated European cities. (7 fig.)

A simple cartographic process is used to point out the potential urban areas in Europe. It consists in connecting neighbouring cities. The emergence of an irregular fabric reveals the continuities and discontinuities of the network of European cities.


Virginie BOUCHARD, Françoise DIGAIRE, Jean-Claude LEFEUVRE et Louis-Marie GUILLON. Salt marsh progression in the West of the Mont-Saint-Michel between 1984 and 1994. (5 fig.)

The development men have been carrying out for centuries in the bay of the Mont Saint-Michel have speeded up the natural process of sedimentation around the Mont. A map of the salt marsh which most threatens the insularity of the Mont was drawn up in 1984, just before the causeway of the Roche-Torin was razed in an attempt to limit the spread of the mud flat. A new cartographic analysis shows that, at present, it is a still heading for the open sea.


Yves CLOUET. The oases. (6 fig.)

Presented as an outline, this article gives on the one hand a typology of the different types of oases and on the other hand, an analysis of the problems of development they face. Owin to the emergence of a prevailing model which is highly integrated into the free-market economy (United States, Argentina, Australia and Central Asia), the populations are suffering from breakings off and oases have to adjust themselves to global economy.


Robert FERRAS. The 3 first volumes of the Atlas of France: almost half a thousand maps representing geographical France, its population and its cities. (5 fig.)

Jean-Paul CHEYLAN et Thérèse PANOUILLÈRES. Stop press.


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Last modified: December 12, 1995