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Perspectives are

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specific to the Places Knowledge Maps site. They let you switch between different place trees, each with a different "perspective" or focus

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• The cultural regions perspective shows places that are culturally significant, but that may not have official government designations. Examples include: movie theaters, informal neighborhood boundaries, or temples.
• The electoral relationships perspective shows regions that are significant to electoral processes. Examples include: Virginia's 10th district.
• The historical polity administrative perspective shows place designations that no longer exist, but may be historically important. Examples include: the thirteen British colonies that became the USA.
• The national administrative units perspective shows official places with administrative significance. Examples include: District of Columbia, Virginia, Albermarle county.

Perspectives don't interact with each other. They're just different place trees within Places. If you add a child to a KMap, it will stay on the same perspective tree as the parent term. Some KMaps may share names across perspectives. For example, "Charlottesville" can be considered from the "national administrative unit" perspective, but also from the "cultural regions" perspective. However, the "cultural-region Charlottesville" KMap is NOT the same as the "national-administrative Charlottesville" KMap, since they're on two different trees.

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. This lets you create nuanced relationships between two places. Let's consider the relationship between Charlottesville and Albemarle.

Charlottesville is "in" Albemarle geographically, but Albemarle isn't the county for the city. Instead, Charlottesville is an independent city. Residents will use "Charlottesville" as their county and city in official forms.

• Virginia
  • Albemarle
  • Charlottesville

• Virginia
  • Albemarle
    • Charlottesville

You can switch perspectives from the Knowledge Maps editors by selecting Perspectives from the Main Menu. We've included a detailed step-by-step guide at the bottom of the page. We've also listed each perspective here, with examples. 

List of Perspectives

Switching Perspectives

1. Go to the places editor at places.kmap.virginia.edu
2. Click on the Main Menu icon
3. Click Settings
4. Click Perspectives
5. Choose the perspective you want to see

   • The perspective tree will open