OK.....the SCALE tells you how far things are on the map in 'scaled' fashion....in this case it says every CM on the map is equal to 8 KILOMETERS in the real world.
So, if it is 18 cm on the map it is 18 TIMES 8 KILOMETERS in the real world.... 144 km
Sorry.....I misread the scale as 1:18 in my original post....the question say 1cm=8km I fixed this error and hope it did not confuse you !!