It's for writing the words in katakana. It's divided into "foreign names," "foreign words," "animal sounds," etc. The ones with the single dotted line are there for guidance for writing the vowel lengthening mark in katakana. The ones that are divided into quarters are there to keep the small kana in proportion to the larger kana, i.e. the small ya in gachan and the small tsu in youroppa.