Why conduct cartographic research: a comparison of cartographic research contributions in four International Cartographic Association (ICA) affiliated journals

In this article, we report on a content analysis of peer-reviewed cartographic research contributions over ten years (2015–2024) in the four International Cartographic Association (ICA) affiliated journals. We adapted a taxonomy of scholarly contributions to cartography to identify patterns across five types of research contributions: conceptual, empirical, methodological, technical, and applied. Our content analysis findings illustrate that the discipline of cartography is healthy regarding research productivity but dominated by scholars in the Global North. All four of the ICA-affiliated journals publish all five research contributions, but each journal has a unique identity related to the types of contributions they most commonly promote. Across the articles, empirical research was most common, while methodological contributions were rarest. Conceptual research garnered the highest citations, and applied contributions the lowest. Surprisingly, critical cartographic scholarship was less common than expected and historiographies were more common than expected. Methodological contributions are important for the reproducibility of methods, and we viewed technical contributions as essential to the practitioner-oriented discipline. Finally, applied research is an important way to contribute interdisciplinary and/or community-engaged research. We discuss potential reasons for the patterns we observed and provide suggestions for researchers in cartography to make their research contributions salient.