suurimittakaavainen

Suurimittakaavainen is a Finnish term used in cartography and related fields to describe something drawn or produced at a large map scale. In mapmaking, scale expresses how much real-world distance is represented by a unit on the map. Large-scale maps show a relatively small area in greater detail, while small-scale maps cover larger regions with less detail.

The word is formed from suur(i) “large,” mittakaava “scale,” and the adjectival suffix -inen. The contrast term is pienimittakaavainen, meaning “small-scale.”

Suurimittakaavainen is commonly used in cartography, surveying, urban planning, zoning, and geographic information systems in Finland. It describes maps, plans, drawings, and datasets that provide detailed representation of a limited area, such as city plans, cadastral maps, or detailed topographic maps.

Typical scales considered large-scale include roughly 1:10 000 to 1:50 000, though thresholds vary by field and country. Some contexts may consider 1:25 000 or 1:5 000 as large-scale, while 1:100 000 is sometimes treated as medium. In practice, suurimittakaavainen indicates higher detail and greater spatial precision than smaller-scale counterparts.

See also: pienimittakaavainen, mittakaava.