The best way of explaining what a map tour is to show you an example, this is the BBC weather forecast:

This clip has several important features to help the audience’s understanding:

• The virtual camera moves around the country allowing the viewers to see where they are.
• The presenter delivers most of the ‘narrative’, commenting on the weather map in the background
• The virtual camera zooms out to a high altitude view to allow the weather across the whole of the UK to be seen as a whole.

A map tour can be used for several purposes:

• To explain a ‘geo’ story where maps over two or more scales are important e.g. the migration of the monarch butterfly
• As a tour around a landscape where the topography or 3D structure (e.g. geology) is significant e.g. Grand Canyon
• As an innovative assignment for students to make