The role of cartographic generalisation is fundamental to mapping and becomes more important the smaller the scale of representation. All geospatial data is subject to generalisation, from moment of capture to graphical representation and subsequent analysis. The ICA has addressed this issue for many years through its active Commission on Generalisation and Multiple Representation.

New Commission
Chaired until August 2007 by Anne Ruas (IGN-France) and William Mackaness (Edinburgh University), the latter now shares leadership of the Commission with Sébastien Mustière (IGN-France). Its purposes are:? u To foster research and practical experience in multi-scale issues and automated map generalisation and to form a network and focal point for researchers and practitioners in this domain.? u To foster and maintain liaison with related commissions and working groups within the ICA and in related national and international organisations such as ISPRS, IGU, and EuroSDR. ? u To maintain a World Wide Web site for electronic dissemination of research on multi-scale issues and map generalisation.? u To organise sessions and meetings for exploring the above issues? u To produce publications for dissemination of above efforts, including one special issue of a peer-reviewed scientific journal or a book every two years.

Recent Activities
Important Commission efforts over recent years led to the appearance in April 2007 of a book entitled Generalisation of Geographic Information: Cartographic Modelling and Applications , edited by William Mackaness, Anne Ruas and Tiina Sarjakoski. Published by Elsevier on behalf of the ICA, the book consists of seventeen chapters written by about thirty domain specialists. It presents theoretical advancements in the field to show how developments have advanced solutions to the point that they are being incorpor­ated into existing commercial solutions. It also provides an overview of future research challenges. The reader gains a clear picture of the breadth of cognate disciplines contributing to this field, as well as a thorough understanding of how these various methodologies are being applied to the real world. In addition, the tenth workshop of the Commission was held in Moscow in August 2007, just before the ICC. Around thirty participants from the academic field, National Mapping Agencies and GIS suppliers took part in discussions and presentation of sixteen papers over two days. All papers and presentations are now available on the Commission website. During the workshop several participants felt the need for a more specialised meeting on web-generalisation services, which was duly held at Ordnance Survey (UK) in November 2007, attracting eleven attendees. The Commission website ( http://ica.ign.fr ) has been totally renewed thanks to Julien Gaffuri from the COGIT Lab (IGN-France). There is now a single entry point to more than a decade of Commission work.

Future Plans
Anew Commission workshop is planned for 20th to 21st June 2008, to be held jointly by the International Cartographic Association, EuroSDR and the Dutch RGI programme. This will precede the International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling (SDH) in Montpellier, France. As usual, in order to keep this event a very active and rich one, people wishing to attend the workshop are invited to submit a paper reviewed by an international programme committee. In contrast to usual conference practice, the workshop is intended to be small and intimate, consisting of short paper presentations and discussions.