The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #161188   Message #3828260
Posted By: DMcG
23-Dec-16 - 09:37 AM
Thread Name: BS: Leap Seconds, and GPS longtitude
Subject: RE: BS: Leap Seconds, and GPS longtitude
"Printing inaccuracies" in maps: back in the eighties I was doing a lot of detailed work with maps of all kinds. Quite a few of the inaccuracies are deliberate. For example it is very typical in the real world to have a railway and road alongside a river. If their widths were drawn at the true scale on a map they would be on top of each other and too fine, or otherwise illegible. Very frequently, then, they are strategically moved in the interests of useability rather than accuracy.

You have similar things on remote islands. The maps may never have been updated since say 1920, so the map itself is accurate rwlative to landmarks but the whole island may be several miles away from its true latitude and longitude.