NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 1 –24The chapter in four points — Before we move on …
Book page 23 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
Maps are a very useful tool to represent an area of the Earth, whether small or large. The main components of maps are distance, direction and symbols.
Answer
What this recap means, expanded:
A map can shrink a whole continent onto one page, or spread one small village across it. What changes is the scale, not the idea.
Distance is carried by the scale — 1 cm = 500 m on the small-city map, 2.5 cm = 500 km on the map of India in Fig. 5.2.
Direction is carried by the N arrow and the eight points of the compass — N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW.
Symbols pack a great deal of information into very little space; in India they are standardised by the Survey of India.
Why this matters: take away any one of the three and the map stops working. No scale — you cannot judge distance. No direction — you cannot use it to travel. No symbols — there is not enough room to show anything.
Q2.
Every place on the Earth has a location which can be precisely defined with the help of a grid of latitudes and longitudes — imaginary lines running from east to west (parallel to the Equator) and north to south (from pole to pole) respectively.
Answer
Unpacking the grid:
Parallels of latitude
Meridians of longitude
Direction of the line
East–west
North–south
Shape
Full circles; smaller as you go towards the poles
Half-circles, all of the same length, meeting at the two poles
Zero line
The Equator, 0°
The Prime Meridian at Greenwich, 0°
Highest value
90°N and 90°S (the poles)
180°E = 180°W (the same line)
They are called imaginary lines because nothing is painted on the ground — they are drawn only on maps and globes. But the positions they give are exact: Delhi 29°N, 77°E.
The one thing to remember: latitude first, longitude second, and never forget the letter — 19°N 73°E is Mumbai, but 19°S 73°W is an empty stretch of the Pacific Ocean.
Q3.
Longitude also marks the time and defines the time zones.
Answer
Because the Earth turns 360° in 24 hours:
360° ÷ 24 h = 15° per hour • 1° = 4 minutes
Every meridian therefore has its own local time, one hour later for each 15° you move east.
Countries group these into time zones — broad bands about 15° wide — and keep one standard time inside each.
The zone boundaries on the world map (Fig. 1.8) are not straight: they bend to follow international borders so that a country is not split between two times.
India keeps a single standard time, IST = GMT + 5:30. Large countries cannot: the USA has 6 zones, Russia 11.
Did you know? A few countries use half-hour or even quarter-hour offsets — India +5:30, Myanmar +6:30, Nepal +5:45. That is why the globe in Fig. 1.9 shows +5.5 over India.
Q4.
The International Date Line is located approximately at 180 degrees longitude, opposite the Prime Meridian. Crossing the International Date Line changes the date by one day.
Answer
The International Date Line (IDL) runs down the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on the far side of the Earth from Greenwich. It is where the +12 and −12 time zones meet, so the calendar has to jump.
Crossing it travelling eastward → subtract a day (Monday becomes Sunday)
Crossing it travelling westward → add a day (Sunday becomes Monday)
Why “approximately” 180°: the line is deliberately bent — it zig-zags around Russia's Chukotka, around the Aleutian Islands of the USA and around the island groups of Kiribati, Fiji and Samoa — so that no country has two different dates on the same day.
Why such a line must exist: travel right round the world adding an hour each 15° eastward and you gain 24 hours by the time you return. Somewhere the extra day has to be given back. That “somewhere” is the International Date Line.