Status and development trend of geological map compilation in the world

Abstract：With economic and social development and scientific and technological progress, as well as unprecedented expansion of the area of geological services, geological maps, as the concentrated manifestations of the results of geological work and a main tool for its services to the economic and social development, have gained great attention of governments of various governments and international organizations and shown some distinctive features and development trends, which are mainly marked by developments from specialized geological maps to more practical maps, from monodisciplinary geological maps to multidisciplinary maps, from regional and national maps to international and global maps and from surface geological maps to those that reflect the deep crustal architecture and structure. In addition, many revisions have been made in map surface structure and form of expression, which enables more geological information to be incorporated in the maps