The map/territory relationship describes the relationship between a thing and a representation of a thing. In military strategy, it is well known that the map of a territory only imperfectly describes the terrain. The terrain, with infinite complexity and variety, cannot be completely described by a map. Therefore, a map must figure out what the most useful features of the terrain are to describe.
This is to say that many people confuse models with things in themselves (a type of [[reification]]).