Editing Cartography (section)

==Deliberate cartographic errors==
{{More citations needed section|date=June 2022}}
{{More|Cartographic propaganda|Cartographic censorship|Trap street}}

Some maps contain deliberate errors or distortions, either as [[Cartographic propaganda|propaganda]] or as a "[[watermark]]" to help the copyright owner identify infringement if the error appears in competitors' maps. The latter often come in the form of nonexistent, misnamed, or misspelled "[[trap streets]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=Monmonier |first=Mark |title=How to Lie with Maps |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |location=Chicago |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-226-53421-3 |page=51 |edition=2nd}}</ref> Other names and forms for this are [[Phantom settlement|paper towns]], [[fictitious entry|fictitious entries]], and copyright [[Easter egg (media)|easter eggs]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs |title=Openstreetmap.org Copyright Easter Eggs |access-date=2018-12-06 |archive-date=2019-02-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190219214003/https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs |url-status=live }}</ref>

Another motive for deliberate errors is cartographic "vandalism": a mapmaker wishing to leave their mark on the work. Mount Richard, for example, was a fictitious peak on the [[Rocky Mountains]]' [[continental divide]] that appeared on a [[Boulder County, Colorado]] map in the early 1970s. It is believed to be the work of draftsman Richard Ciacci. The fiction was not discovered until two years later.

[[Sandy Island, New Caledonia|Sandy Island]] in New Caledonia is an example of a fictitious location that stubbornly survives, reappearing on new maps copied from older maps while being deleted from other new editions.

With the emergence of the internet and [[Web mapping]], technologies allow for the creation and distribution of maps by people without proper cartographic training are readily available. This has led to maps that ignore cartographic conventions and are potentially misleading.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Adams |first1=Aaron |last2=Xiang |first2=Chen |last3=Weidong |first3=Li |last4=Zhang |first4=Chuanrong |title=The disguised pandemic: The importance of data normalization in COVID-19 web mapping |journal=[[Public Health (journal)|Public Health]] |date=May 2020 |volume=183 |issue=3 |pages=36–37 |doi=10.1016/j.puhe.2020.04.034 |pmid=32416476 |pmc=7203028}}</ref>