“NOT FOR US TO FORESEE…,” OR ABOUT FUTURE MAPS

A second paper from a national conference on the status of cartography on the eve of a new millennium (see the preceding paper by A. A. Lyutyy in this issue for the first) examines the relationship between cartography's future development and geographic information technologies. The author argues that prediction of the future of cartography, and of the properties of future maps, will prove a difficult exercise at best, inasmuch as it cannot be based on the simple extrapolation of present trends. Translated by Edward Torrey, Alexandria, VA 22308 from: Izvestiya Akademii Nauk, seriya geograficheskaya, 1998, No. 1, pp. 116-121.