比例尺是指地图上距离和实际距离之间的比例。例如当实际距离为1000米，而在地图上的距离为10厘米时，则称这一地区的比例尺是1:10,000。一般将比例尺为1:0至1:600,000的地图称为大比例尺地图，1:600,000至1:2,000,000的地图称为中比例尺地图，1:2,000,000至1:∞的地图成为小比例尺地图。

维基共享资源中相关的多媒体资源：比例尺 (地图)

The scale of a map is the ratio of a distance on the map to the corresponding distance on the ground. This simple concept is complicated by the curvature of the Earth's surface, which forces scale to vary across a map. Because of this variation, the concept of scale becomes meaningful in two distinct ways. The first way is the ratio of the size of the generating globe to the size of the Earth. The generating globe is a conceptual model to which the Earth is shrunk and from which the map is projected.