It is well-known that neural responses in particular brain regions are spatially organized, but no general principles have been de(cid:173) veloped that relate the structure of a brain map to the nature of the associated computation. On parallel computers, maps of a sort quite similar to brain maps arise when a computation is distributed across multiple processors. In this paper we will discuss the rela(cid:173) tionship between maps and computations on these computers and suggest how similar considerations might also apply to maps in the brain.