NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 1 Symbols — Let's Explore
Book page 11 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
Draw a rough map of your locality or your village, including your home, school and a few other important landmarks. Show the cardinal directions and use a few of the symbols shown in Fig. 1.2 on page 12 to mark some important features.
Answer
What your map must contain to be a proper map and not just a drawing:
a north arrow;
a title (“Map of Rampur village” / “My locality”);
a rough scale or at least an idea of distance (“1 cm ≈ 100 m”);
symbols taken from Fig. 1.2 — the Survey of India signs; and
a legend explaining each symbol you have used.
Useful symbols from Fig. 1.2: double line for a metalled road, dashed double line for an unmetalled road, hatched line for a railway line with RS for the station, a wavy blue band for a river and a small circle for a well, a blue patch for a tank, a small flagged square for a temple, and PO, PTO, PS for a post office, a post & telegraph office and a police station.
A sample rough sketch map. Yours will look different — but it must have the same four things: title, north arrow, symbols and a legend.
Sample answer (what to write below your map): “Map of my locality, scale about 1 cm = 100 m. My home is on the eastern side of the main road; my school is about 400 m to the west, on the southern side. The temple is north of the road and the village well is to the north-east. The post office (PO) is near the crossing of the main road and the kachcha road.”
Why fixed symbols matter: the Survey of India, set up in 1767 and the country's oldest scientific department, fixes one set of signs for all Indian maps. Because everybody uses the same signs, a soldier, a farmer and a schoolchild all read the same map in the same way.