The primary sector involves activities that:

produce goods directly from nature

Which of these belongs to the secondary sector?

Manufacturing cloth from cotton in a factory

A map is a drawing or representation of an area as seen from above; it may show a village, a country or the whole world.

What are the three main components of a map?

Distance (shown by the scale), direction and symbols are the three main components of a map.

Why is a globe a better model of the Earth than a flat map?

Because the Earth is nearly a sphere, a spherical globe represents its geography more accurately than a flat sheet, which cannot show a sphere without distortion.

What is the latitude of the Equator and of the poles?

The Equator is 0°, the North Pole is 90°N and the South Pole is 90°S.

How does latitude relate to climate?

Climate is generally hot (torrid) near the Equator, moderate (temperate) at middle latitudes, and cold (frigid) near the poles.

What is the Prime Meridian and when was it fixed?

The Prime Meridian is the 0° longitude passing through Greenwich, agreed upon as the international standard in 1884.

Why does longitude help us measure time?

The Earth turns 360° in 24 hours, so each 15° of longitude corresponds to a difference of one hour of local time.

How far ahead of GMT is Indian Standard Time?

Indian Standard Time is 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.

What happens when you cross the International Date Line?

You change the date by one day — subtracting a day if travelling eastward and adding a day if travelling westward.

Which ancient Indian city had its own prime meridian?

Ujjayinī (today Ujjain) lay on the madhya rekhā, an ancient Indian prime meridian used by astronomers such as Varāhamihira.

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Chapter 1: Locating Places on the Earth — Class 6 Social Science

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Chapter 1: Locating Places on the Earth

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What is a map?

Summary

A map is a drawing that represents an area as seen from above, and an atlas is a collection of maps. Maps come in three broad kinds — physical, political and thematic — and rely on three main components: distance (shown by a scale, such as 1 cm = 500 m), direction (the four cardinal directions north, east, south and west, plus intermediate ones), and symbols (standardised drawings fixed by the Survey of India). Because the Earth is nearly a sphere, it cannot be flattened onto paper without distortion, so a globe represents it best. Any place can be located using a grid of two coordinates. Latitudes are parallels running east–west, measured from the Equator (0°) to the poles (90°N and 90°S), and they relate to climate — torrid near the Equator, temperate further away, frigid near the poles. Longitudes are meridians running pole to pole, measured from the Prime (Greenwich) Meridian fixed in 1884, from 0° to 180° east or west. Longitude also measures time: the Earth turns 360° in 24 hours, so 15° equals one hour. Indian Standard Time is 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of GMT. The International Date Line lies near 180°. Ancient India used its own prime meridian through Ujjayinī (Ujjain).

Maps, atlases and their componentsScale, direction and symbolsLatitudes and climateLongitudes and the Prime MeridianTime zones, IST and the International Date Line

Key terms

Scale

The ratio that tells how a distance on a map relates to the actual distance on the ground, e.g. 1 cm = 500 m.

Latitude

An imaginary line (parallel) measuring distance north or south of the Equator, from 0° to 90°.

Longitude

An imaginary line (meridian) measuring distance east or west of the Prime Meridian, from 0° to 180°.

Prime Meridian

The 0° longitude passing through Greenwich, fixed in 1884 as the international reference line.

Indian Standard Time

India's single standard time, which is 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

International Date Line

An imaginary line near 180° longitude; crossing it changes the date by one day.

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Scale

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The ratio that tells how a distance on a map relates to the actual distance on the ground, e.g. 1 cm = 500 m.

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Practice quiz · Locating Places on the Earth

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Locating Places on the Earth

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