Cartography

Have you ever encountered the trouble of getting lost in a strange place or in a complex building? You may believe that navigation services can save you from frustrations. At the same time, you don’t want to become spatially illiterate, that is, someone who is afraid to move a step forward without navigational assistance. Finding your way in a digital forest is even more challenging because neither compass nor GPS works there. Don’t worry: Your sense of orientation in both physical and digital space can be learned in this international joint master "Cartography". The program is geared toward digital natives who want to know how to transform our world into different types of maps on different display media and make it accessible by everybody including the visually impaired. We call it "mapping for a sustainable world". The program covers knowledge of and competencies in the visual representation, analysis and exploration of the digital Earth, together with its spatiotemporal elements and circumstances. The content of the program focuses chiefly on methods and applications in the areas of data modelling, data analysis and the visualization of geographical information. Cartography is devoted, in particular, to answering complex questions relating to the spatiality of a globalized and digitalized society. As such, it considers how the cartographic visualization and analysis of our environment is gaining an ever greater significance in many disciplines – from environmental and climate protection to geology, spatial planning or agriculture and forestry. In addition to conveying the fundamentals of the discipline and its methodologies, the program concentrates on the readable, aesthetic, and user-friendly visualization of geographical data, as well as the development of new methods of representation in the area of modern cartography. Graduates have in-depth competence and fundamental knowledge in the entire field of cartography. Students learn to master recent theories, methods and procedures connected to map production and map use in the context of modern cartography and geoinformatics. Graduates are capable of developing cartographic research projects and implementing them in a professional and economic way. They have the ability to capture, model, manage, analyze and visualize spatial data, can competently handle databases and geographic information systems and manage rule-based graphic data processing in all forms and for all user groups. They are able to master all publication forms and media, from print media to electronic multimedia including web-publishing. Graduates are in a position to strongly influence and shape cartography as an independent science with its own research and object of knowledge, but also with strong relations to earth sciences, information sciences and communication sciences. As Cartography is an international master program, it involves students from a wide variety of cultural groups. Participants, thus, not only develop