Navigation system and method of displaying a quasi-three-dimensional map information

A method of displaying quasi-three-dimensional map information, comprising:

• reading map data corresponding to an area wider than an area required for displaying the map information with an equal scale factor;
• drawing the map information, as to a horizontal reduction scale factor for a display screen, by setting a reduction scale factor for a first area to a first reference value, setting a reduction scale factor for areas on the sides of the first area to a first value smaller than the first reference value, and as to a vertical reduction scale factor for the display screen, by setting a reduction scale factor for a lower area to a second reference value, setting a reduction scale factor for an area above the lower area to a second value smaller than the second reference value;
• and
• displaying the drawn map information on the display screen.

A method of displaying map information, comprising:

• reading map data for an area to be displayed, where the map data are defined with respect to an X, Y coordinate system;
• identifying a first area within the area to be displayed;
• drawing map information based on the map data, where map information for the first area is drawn in accordance with a first scale factor in at least one of the coordinate directions, and map information for at least part of a second area within the area to be displayed that is outside the first area is drawn with a scale factor smaller than the first scale factor in the at least one coordinate direction;
• and
• displaying the drawn map information for the area to be displayed.