  The structure of the category of matroids and strong maps is investigated: it
has coproducts and equalizers, but not products or coequalizers; there are
functors from the categories of graphs and vector spaces, the latter being
faithful; there is a functor to the category of geometric lattices, that is
nearly full; there are various adjunctions and free constructions on
subcategories, inducing a simplification monad; there are two orthogonal
factorization systems; some, but not many, combinatorial constructions from
matroid theory are functorial.
