I have in my hand a road map of the state of California. Like all such ordinary objects it is philosophically astounding and I am going to explore some of its astounding features. The interest that the map has for me is not just in the specifics of map productions and cartographic representations, but I have a series of questions of a much more philosophical and indeed almost metaphysical kind about the relation between representation and reality and the implications that these have for our relations to the world.