This guide evolved from the materials that I have gathered over the years, mainly as lecture notes used for the 5–day training course GEOSTAT. This means that, in order to understand the structure of this book, it is important that you understand how the course evolved and how did the students respond to this process. The GEOSTAT training course was originally designed as a three–week block module with a balanced combination of theoretical lessons, hands on software training and self-study exercises.

This book is an introduction to critical cartography and GIS. As such, it is neither a textbook nor a software manual. My purpose is to discuss various aspects of mapping theory and practice, from critical social theory to some of the most interesting new mapping practices such as map hacking and the geospatial web. It is an appreciation of a more critical cartography and GIS.

Geostatistics is a subset of statistics specialized in analysis and interpretation of geographically referenced data (Goovaerts, 1997; Webster and Oliver, 2001; Nielsen and Wendroth, 2003). In other words, geostatistics comprises statistical techniques that are adjusted to spatial data. Typical questions of interest to a geostatistician are:

how does a variable vary in space?

what controls its variation in space?

where to locate samples to describe its spatial variability?

how many samples are needed to represent its spatial variability?

what is a value of a variable at some new location?

what is the uncertainty of the estimate?

Нет надобности говорить о том, какое огромное зна-чение имеет правильно поставленное' преподавание географии в деле воепитания чувства советского патриотизма у нашей молодежи. Особенно велика здесь роль краеве-дения, которое должно быть положено в основу препода-вания географии. Но чтобы вести преподавание географии на основах краеведения, необходимо как учителю, так и ученикам проводить самостоятельную работу по изучению своего края. <...>