Mexico mis-map #1: Mazatlán Tourist Brochure

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Sep 092019
 

Graphic designers often taken liberties with maps. Nowhere is this more apparent than in this otherwise beautiful tourism brochure promoting the Pacific Coast resort of Mazatlán, collected recently in British Colombia, Canada.

Here is the map in question:

Mexico’s relief, as shown on this map, is highly distorted. Accepting that the graphical designer was only interested in relief along the western side of Mexico given that the brochure is about Mazatlán, depicting a single massive range of mountains running from northern Mexico to Oaxaca is completely inaccurate.

By way of comparison, here is a map we used previously to pinpoint the Monarch Butterfly reserves in the Volcanic Axis of Mexico. This map is based on the much more accurate relief map of Mexico from Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico:

Location of Volcanic Axis and Monarch Butterfly reserves

Location of Volcanic Axis and Monarch Butterfly reserves. Basemap: Figure 3.1 of Geo-Mexico; all rights reserved.

The book is still in print. Buy your copy today, especially if you are a graphic designer about to take unwarranted liberties with any map of Mexico!