Abstract
Cartographic scholar Denis Wood using Barthean semiotics, argues that all cartography is a tool used in a political process. Wood created two classifications of structural analysis for the elements of cartography to identify the true reason and purpose of the cartographic image.
The first classification is the intrasignification class whose codes are those which the map exploits. These codes operate within the map at the level of language, usually through its representations, and iconography. Wood’s second classification is the extrasignification class. These codes operate outside the map, by virtue of the exploitation of the map; by getting the map to work to further the goals of its author or patron. These classes create what is known as critical cartography.
The following is an application of critical cartographic analysis to these three images of the unique colonial situation in Mexico. I will apply the various codes created by Wood, with a focus on the codes of the intrasignification elements of these cartographic images and the overall extrasignificational use of the cartographic images by the patron/owner of the image in the struggle for power in early colonial Tenochtitlan/Mexico City.