Borden Dent

Borden D. Dent (1938–2000) was an American geographer and cartographer who served as professor emeritus and chairman of the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Georgia State University. His textbook, Cartography: Thematic Map Design, has been one of the seminal texts in the field.

Biography Born in Arkansas, Dent attended elementary and high school in Maryland. He completed a B.A. in Geography at Towson State University before pursuing an M.A. in Geography from the University of California at Berkeley. Dent then went on to earn his PhD in Geography from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

After completing his education, Dent taught geography and cartography classes at Georgia State University for thirty years. During his career, Dent published articles on cartography and geography in leading professional journals, including the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, the American Cartographer, the Cartographic Journal and the Journal of Geography.

The American Congress on Surveying and Mapping asked Dent in 1981 to contribute the first map commentary ever featured in The American Cartographer. Dent's academic publications have been cited 121 times as of April 2009.

Background Dent's specialization as a geographer and cartographer was thematic mapping. He defined thematic maps as those that show “the spatial distribution of some geographical phenomenon,” in contrast with general-purpose or reference maps that “display objects (both natural and man-made) from the geographical environment.” He went on to detail a variety of factors that led to the development of thematic maps, including the development of accurate base maps, improvements in printing technology, and the rise of statistics as a field of study. These and many other cultural and intellectual factors contributed to the creation of an environment in late 17th century Western Europe that spawned the thematic map, now recognized as a revolutionary development in the history of cartography. During this period, the great majority of techniques used to depict thematic data were developed. These included “proportional point symbols, the line of equal value (isoline), the choropleth and shading, the dot method, class intervals, and flow lines.”

In the thesis, Dent argued that the map was a vehicle for graphically relaying ideas from the cartographer to the map reader. The remainder of the article was dedicated to discussing the visual enhancement of the figure in relation to the ground by increasing heterogeneity between the two elements. Dent suggested using strong, well-defined edges for the figure, articulating the figure, and depicting the figure as a closed shape. He concluded the article by observing that the figures on the map carry the important intellectual content, but that an effective map cannot be created without visually integrating the geographic data of the ground into the whole. Dent also included a focus on choropleth mapping in quantitative cartography and “a growing interest among professional cartographers in the history of thematic mapping.”

Dent included a new section on geographic information systems in the fifth edition. He said that “regardless of the sophistication of technologies employed in making and designing maps, the process will continue to demand more and more of the creative energies of the designer.”