Q: Is it me, or does the subway map make Manhattan bigger than it should be?

A: Let me refer you to the fine print located in the map’s key: “To show service more clearly geography on this map has been modified.” Thus, Manhattan has been widened to make it easier to fit all the subway lines on the map. Staten Island, with only one railway line, appears smaller. Brooklyn looks wider and has been moved slightly north. Queens and the Bronx appear narrower, because fewer lines operate over their large areas.

“We have never intended the map to be something by which people navigate streets as walkers or drivers,” the director of marketing for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Alicia Martinez, said.

While it may seem obvious that a map could not be drawn to scale and still include all the subway, bus, and rail stops, how realistically the subway lines are represented has changed, along with the system and circumstance, over the years. Maps were redesigned in 1913, less than 10 years after the subway began operation. In 1939 the BMT line created a map for the World’s Fair, highlighting its route to Flushing Meadow, a change that was repeated when the World’s Fair returned to Flushing Meadow in 1964. Other notable map modifications include a modern look given by the designer Massimo Vignelli, who faded the city into the background in beige – made only symbolic mention of the East River – and turned the routes into a series of parallel lines to show how the various subway lines related, similar to the map of the London “tube.” At the time a Daily News article quoted an MTA official who said: “Maps like these have to make deliberate distortions to clarify.”

With the picture-perfect view of hindsight, Ms. Martinez said of the 1972 map: “It was beautiful but not as useful as a map might be.” When she came to the MTA 13 years ago, subway and railroad maps were separate. In 1996 all the services were combined into one map – and in 1998, what was affectionately referred to as “the map” became “The Map.” Perhaps the greatest improvement was the introduction of bus connections at subway stations, helping riders take advantage of the free bus transfers introduced in 1997. A week after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the MTA printed a revised map blocking out the World Trade Center. Many of those maps are now collected by enthusiasts, who are no doubt waiting until the International Olympic Committee votes July 6 before auctioning on eBay the NYC2012 map printed in February by the city’s Olympics committee.

The MTA prints 6 million pocket maps a year, as well as hundreds of jumbo platform maps, subway car maps, regular and multilingual pocket maps, Web site maps, and z-card folding maps.