The scale of a map (ie the amount by which say, one meter is reduced to one centimetre) is one thing but the detail is quite another. Obviously, a map of the world, reduced to a sheet of A4 is going to be an awful lot less detailed than the A to Z map of London, reduced to a sheet of A3. But that in itself does not tell the whole story. I have two Michelin maps of France, both to the same scale, where the entire country fits onto one side of a ‘map sized’ sheet of paper. One of the maps shows most of the roads and villages, right down to some medium sized villages. The other just shows the decent sized towns (but not all of them) and the major trunk roads. Same scale, but very much different detail.
Similarly, the maps can be of the same scale but one be shaded to indicate hills, mountains and valleys (or show contour lines) whilst the other map is one dimensionally flat, devoid of any relief features at all.
It’s these differences that make maps interesting and to some degree ‘personal’. What suits one man or purpose, might not suit another. For example, I find IGN’s maps of France, with all their shadings, too ‘busy’, preferring the one dimensional, basically coloured Michelin maps. Though if I were sitting in my parent’s house in France and wanted to show a visitor Mont Ventoux and the gorges, I might show them an IGN map, as it makes the mountain and the deep valleys easier to visualise. Similarly, if I wanted to plot a direct’ish route from their house in Provence to St Malo on the NW coast, I would use the stripped down version of the Michelin map, as all I would want would be the major ‘sensible’ roads between A and B, and not be interested at all that the minor D475 (green scenic bordered as it might be) went between two small villages somewhere along the way. Had though I wanted to go to one or both of the villages, I’d need the same scale map but with more detail or another map entirely.
I have just received through the post, Michelin’s maps of Poland. The entire country on one sheet and it divided into four separate maps; the county quartered to the four cardinal points: NW, NE, SE and SW. I’ll probably only need the SW and SE maps to go via Berlin and Warsaw to Kiev. Indeed, I’d probably not need a map at all to go from Berlin to Warsaw, as I could just take a motorway, which is probably signposted. But that, to me a least, is not as interesting as looking at a map to see where places are, or to see where I am at say 11:15 AM on some day in 2022 or 2023, if I have a puncture that morning. My GPS or phone would of course tell me exactly, to within maybe 15 metres but it wouldn’t tell me the whole story. Or at least to me it wouldn’t.
Thank you everyone for your help and comments, really appreciated.