Prepared on behalf of The British Cartographic Society by Giles Darkes, Cartographic Consultant, and Mary Spence MBE, one of the UK’s leading cartographic practitioners, this booklet has been published by BCS in support of its Better Mapping Campaign. Its aim is to give basic information on what works well in map design and to get the world thinking about maps and their messages. Cartography - an introduction, is a comprehensive little A6 booklet covering the fundamentals of mapping such as: why good cartography is important map functions and map types how maps are made feature selection and generalisation symbolisation of areas, lines, points data quality and map quality the basic principles of map design colour and text on maps page layout and marginalia tips on how to make better maps Cartography - an introduction