Art or Cartogrpahy - What is a map?

[foremost]

When I think of art, I think of an artist expressing his (or her) thoughts,
ideas, and style through a physical medium. When I think of maps, I think
of art depicting a location (and conveying information about the depicted).
One of the best things about this forum is the variety of works to be found.
I wouldn't say all of the attached works qualify as maps, based on my
humble definition. As long as the person at the end of the internet terminal
put effort, and the previously mentioned element of thought, into their work,
I'd say it's art.

This issue comes up a lot regarding the lite challenges; we've had some
magnificent pieces of art that flopped in voting due to voters not finding them
to be maps.

Again, there's a huge variety of works to be found here; different styles of
maps, different purposes/applications, and different ideas. That's what makes
it great. A map from Cartographer X is going to look different than a map from
Cartographer Y. Some of the pieces here are more artistic and some are more
practical. When judging whether a piece of art is a map or not, I find it helpful
to include the context or application of the piece.

To summarize, I don't think there are specific guidelines for a map. A scale
and a compass rose are useful, but I couldn't just put those elements on a
bleak background and call it a map (not saying anyone was suggesting that).