In cartography, plans are graphic representations of small areas of a territory, they are larger than those normally represented in architectural plans. For example, an urban plan is the representation of a city.

The plane differs from the map in that to prepare it it is not necessary to make a projection (the mathematical procedure used to represent a curved surface on a plane). In the case of a plane, the curvature of the surface to be represented, due to its limited extension, is minimal or negligible, which makes the projection unnecessary, which would be relevant to represent larger territories. It allows you to observe human works and specific places, but it is prepared according to the artist's interpretation.

Its scale "Scale (cartography)") (for example, 1:5000) is therefore usually larger than that of maps (based, for example, on the sheets of the National Topographic Map of Spain most widely disseminated by the National Geographic Institute, which are at a scale of 1:50,000).