Visualizing Maps with Symbol

The following maps provide a good example for figure-ground relationship, which refers to a map's perceptual organization of the figure (i.e. the features of the map) with the users and the ground (i.e. the background of the map). The common technique to accentuate figure-ground relationship is to have high visual contrast between the features and the background, either by making the background much darker and the feature much lighter (as in the first map) or making the background much lighter and the features much darker (as in the second map).