Nigeria is a good example of a country, which has met her mapping goals. Within a 20—year 
period 95% of the country has been mapped at the basic scale of 1:50 000. This is a remarkable 
achivement for a country of about 1 million square kilometers. Furthermore the mappingof ur- 
ban centres at large scale has proceeded at a satisfactory rate, even though the conditions to do 
so have been rather difficult. 
The situation is different, however in the remainder of the developing countries. Table 2 
reflects the results of a United Nations’ study conducted by A. Brandenberger on the state of 
world.cartography conducted in 1980. 
TABLE 2: STATE OF WORLD CARTOGRAPHY 
UNITED NATIONS 1980 
EXPENDITURES 
0.396 of Public Expenditures 
0.03% of Gross National Products 
  
  
     
    
  
     
    
  
     
     
     
     
   
   
    
    
   
  
   
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
SCALES 
CONTINENT 1:25000 1:50000 1: 100000 1:250000 
Africa 2% 24% 17% 78% 
Asia without USSR 11% 51% 62% ‘ 80% 
Europe without USSR 91% 91% 77% 95% 
North & Central America 34% 61% 7% 88% 
Oceania and Australia 13% 42% 42% 80% 
South America 10% 27% 42% 50% 
USSR 5% 61% 100% 100% 
World 13% 42% 42% 80% 
Annual Progress 0.28% 1.20% 0.28% 0% 
310 years 40 years 170 years 
Annual Updating 3.2% 2.7% 2.7% 0% 
30 years 40 years 40 years 
Only Europe, North America and perhaps Asia has been able to make a significant headway 
to provide the required map coverage at medium scales (1: 50 000). Africa is only mapped to 
29%. Substracting Nigeria this would even be less. Likewise, South America is only mapped 27%. 
The annual progress with existing technologies of photogrammetry does not permit the achieve 
ment of the required average in less than 40 years. Furthermore current maps cannot be updated 
at a more rapid rate than every 40 years.