What are those little sticks with wheels, used for measuring maps, called? Where can I get one?

Question

When I was in primary school, the school had some little devices that were about the size of a pencil, but with a round wheel at one end. The circumference of the wheel was 1cm (I think) and it would click every time it turned, so if you ran the wheel along a map, you could count the clicks (centimetres) to work out the distance between 2 points on a map.

Now that I m middle aged and a hill walker, I d quite like to have one of those little devices, but looking on the internet, I can t find out what they were called, or where to buy one.

Can anyone suggest what they were called, or even better, some links for where to buy one (ideally in the UK)?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

They seem to have various names such as "map wheel," "map measuring tool," etc. There seem to be a lot of old ones for sale on eBay but there are also new ones (with digital readouts) being manufactured too. Search on phrases like the ones I mentioned to see if there are any for sale in your country. Good luck!

adaviel · Answer

There's a good chance you can do that digitially with a map program.
E.g. in Merkaartor I can add a new road, and the info on that will tell me the total length.
And a hiking/fitness app probably has a feature specifically for that, which will tell you the elevation difference and trail steepness too. E.g. strava.com

Anonymous · Answer

I made one once. I made a wheel out of the cap of a map tube and marked off miles on it!

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What are those little sticks with wheels, used for measuring maps, called? Where can I get one?

3 Answers