In The Wind Waker, Link uses charts to help him find where various islands, items, treasures or even people are. There is the Sea Chart, Treasure Charts, Triforce Charts, and Special Charts. Charts also appear in Phantom Hourglass but the only charts are sea charts and treasure charts. Phantom Hourglass uses unique features of the Nintendo DS to introduce new interactive puzzles with charts.
Types
Sea Chart
Sea Charts are maps of islands which can be viewed by pressing up on the controller and are found (with the exception of Outset Island, the Forsaken Fortress, and Windfall Island) by giving a fishman All-Purpose Bait to receive a map of the current "section" you are in. They also appear in Phantom Hourglass but there are only four of them as each section is 1/4 of the total world map.
Treasure Charts
Treasure Charts are used to find treasure, hence the name. The treasures that can be found are rupees and pieces of heart. They can be found by doing sub-quests and opening treasure chests. Treasure is collected using the grappling hook over a glowing batch of light. In The Wind Waker, there are a total of 41 Treasure Charts which can lead to Rupees, Heart Pieces or even Special Charts. In Phantom Hourglass, there are a total of 31 Treasure Charts which can lead to Rupees, Sand of Hours or Ship Parts.
Triforce Charts
There are a total of eight Triforce Charts, each leading to a piece of the Triforce of courage. Because they are written in ancient Hylian Link is unable to read them and must bring them to Tingle to be deciphered, at the price of 398 Rupees each.
Special Charts
Special Charts are maps that lead neither not to treasure but to other things such as locations of Beedle's Shop Ship, submarines and lookout towers. There are a total of 12 charts. To see a complete list of the Special Charts, see here.
Phantom Hourglass Chart Features
Phantom Hourglass is the first game to allow Link to make notations on the dungeon maps and sea charts. The Uncharted Island goes even further and requires Link to draw a map of the entire island and solve a riddle based on the resulting shape.
Template:Spoiler In Phantom Hourglass there is also a special chart found in the Temple of the Ocean King, that Link must "place his sea chart against" in order to transfer the imprint of the Courage symbol from the original map to his. To successfully transfer the symbol to Link's chart, the DS lid must be shut while looking at both the map and the south-western sea chart.