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Market area maps have long been used as standard tools in the study of markets, planning of sales territories, and in the distribution of products nationally. Consequently market area or trade area maps of the United States have been published by many organizations. All of these maps implied a representation of the flow of trade for all kinds of retail outlets. Because of this over-all coverage, the maps have been of limited value as they were not satisfactory for any one line of products. It is a fundamental principle in marketing map construction that a map must pertain to a homogeneous line of products if it is to be even roughly accurate for practical usage. That is, the map must concern itself either with a specific product or a group of products that have similar shopping characteristics such as shopping lines, foods, drugs, services, etc. The Curtis Publishing Company has recently published a market area map for shopping lines. Shopping line products are those items for which a purchaser shops around and compares prices and quality before buying. They include such products as clothing, accessories, dry goods, household goods, jewelry, silverware, etc.-items which account for 8o per cent of the sales of the average department store. This market area map was the result of an intensive study over a two-year period. New methods in map construction were explored and techniques were developed not heretofore used on a national scale. This case study of the construction of a market area map describes in detail the method used by the Research Department of The Curtis Publishing Company in constructing its market area map for shopping lines. There are two basic problenis in the construction of a market area map