Question

You are drawing a map. Two cities on the map are 7 inches apart. You know the actual distance between them is 1,750 miles. What is the scale factor for the map?

Answer 1

250 miles

Explanation:

Answer 2

• 1 inch : 250 miles
• 1/15,840,000

Explanation:

Map scale factors are usually written a couple of different ways. One of them is the number of miles represented by 1 inch. Here, that is ...

1750 mi/(7 in) = 250 mi/in

Written that way, the scale factor is 1 in : 250 miles.

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The other way the scale factor can be written is as a unitless ratio. That ratio is ...

`\frac{1\,\text{in}}{250\,\text{mi}}*\frac{1\,\text{mi}}{5280\,\text{ft}}*\frac{1\,\text{ft}}{12\,\text{in}}=(1)/(250\cdot 5280\cdot 12)=(1)/(15,840,000)`

The map scale factor is 1 in : 250 miles, or 1/15,840,000.