What is the difference between GIS and Cartography?

[Michael]

[Cookies]

cartography is the art/study of making maps -- fundamentally 2D maps/projections, largely focused on geographic/navigation maps rather than maps of things like population density or industrial proliferation in a region.

GIS = global information system; this has to do more with managing geospatial information that just map making -- rendering the geospatial data onto various map projections (including 3D spherical/ellipsoidal projections) is just one small part of GIS. for example, a GIS has to worry about storing data like rainfall, population density, per capita income, household electricity consumption, and pet food consumption in some kind of database system that makes all that data easily accessible and searchable -- in addition to being able to render that data on any type of map projection, and using the time series data to render animations of how that data changes over time. these are issues that cartography leaves for other disciplines -- like social science, business/marketing, corporate history, government.

cartography focuses on the maps and the projections of the earth's geography themselves; GIS worrys about everything supporting the production of the rendering of map-based data.