Topic Merging

When two topics are merged, the result is a single topic representing the aggregate of the information of the two merged topics. In practice this means that the types of the new topic are the union of the types of the two source topics; likewise the names and occurrences of the new topic are the union of the names and occurrences of the two source topics; and finally wherever either of the two topics plays a role in an association, or provides the type for another topic map construct, they will be replaced by the new topic.

Although simple, these merging rules give a great deal of power and flexibility to topic maps, enabling the development of modular systems of topic maps each providing a different view of the same basic concepts; or the development of topic maps by automated processes which can then be further developed manually without the need to edit the automatically generated topic map directly.