Blackbottle and Toowoola are 17 cm apart on a map with a scale of 1 : 50 000. How far apart are the towns in real life?

Step 1: Understand the scale. The scale of the map is 1:50,000. This means that 1 cm on the map represents 50,000 cm in real life.

Step 2: Apply the scale to the distance on the map. The towns are 17 cm apart on the map. So, to find out how far they are apart in real life, you multiply the map distance by the scale.

Calculation: 17 cm (map distance) * 50,000 (scale) = 850,000 cm

Step 3: Convert the distance from cm to km, since it's more common to express distances in kilometers. There are 100,000 cm in a kilometer, so you divide the distance by 100,000.

Calculation: 850,000 cm ÷ 100,000 = 8.5 km

So, the towns are 8.5 km apart in real life.