Cartography or mapmaking (in
Greek ''chartis'' = map and ''graphein'' = write) has been an integral part of the human story for a long time (maybe 8,000 years - nobody knows exactly, but longer than written words).
[1] From
cave paintings to ancient maps of
Babylon,
Greece and
Asia, through the
Age of Exploration, and on into the 21st century, people have created and used maps as the essential tools to help them define, explain and navigate their way through the world (and beyond). According to some scholars, mapping represented a significant step forward in the intellectual development of human beings and it serves as a record of the advancing knowledge of the human race.
Earliest known maps
The first known maps are of the heavens, not the earth. Dots dating to 16,500 BC found on the walls of the
Lascaux caves map out part of the night sky, including the three bright stars
Vega,
Deneb and
Altair (the
Summer Triangle asterism); as well as the
Pleiades star cluster. The
Cuevas de El Castillo in Spain contain a dot map of the
Corona Borealis constellation dating from 12,000 BC.Cave painting and rock carvings used simple visual elements that may have aided in recognizing landscape features, such as hills or dwellings.
[2]
The oldest extant picture that resembles a map was created in the late
7th millennium BC in
Çatalhöyük,
Anatolia, modern
Turkey. This wall painting represents a plan of an early urban area that prospered from trading obsidian.
[3]
Whoever visualized the Çatalhöyük ‘mental map’ may have been encouraged by the fact that houses in Çatalhöyük were clustered together and were entered via flat roofs. Therefore, it was normal for the inhabitants to view their city from a bird’s eye view. Later civilizations followed the same convention; today, almost all maps are drawn as if we are looking down from the sky instead of from a horizontal or oblique perspective. There are exceptions: one of the ‘quasi-maps’ of the
Minoan civilization on
Crete, the “House of the Admiral†wall painting dating from c.
1600 BC, shows a seaside community in an oblique perspective.
Ancient Near East
Maps in Ancient
Babylonia were made using accurate
surveying techniques.
[4]
For example, a 7.6 x 6.8 cm clay tablet found in 1930 at
Ga-Sur, near today's
Kirkuk, shows a map of a river valley between two hills.
Cuneiform inscriptions label the features on the map, including a plot of land described as 354 iku (12 hectares) owned by a person called Azala. Most scholars date the tablet to
2,300 BCE-
2,500 BCE;
Leo Bagrow dissents with a date of
3,800 BCE. Hills are shown by overlapping semicircles, rivers by lines and cities by circles. The map is also marked to show the
cardinal directions.
[1]
An engraved map from the Kassite period (
14th –
12th centuries BCE) of Babylonian history, shows walls and buildings in the holy city of
Nippur.
[6]
In contrast, the
Babylonian World Map -- the earliest surviving map of the world (c. 600BCE) -- is a symbolic, not literal representation. It omits peoples such as the
Persians and
Egyptians, who were well known to the Babylonians. The area shown is depicted as a circular shape surrounded by water, which fits the religious image of the world in which the Babylonians believed.
Maps were quite rare in ancient
Egypt; however those that have survived show an emphasis on geometry and surveying techniques, perhaps stimulated by the need to re-establish the exact boundaries of properties after the annual Nile floods. The
Turin Papyrus, dated c. 1300 BCE, shows the mountains east of the Nile where gold and silver were mined, along with the location of the miners’ shelters, wells, and the road network that linked the region with the mainland. Its originality can be seen in the map’s inscriptions, its precise orientation and the use of colour.
Ancient Greece
Early Greek Literature
In reviewing the literature of early geography and early conceptions of the earth, all sources lead to
Homer, who is considered by many (
Strabo, Kish and
Dilke) as the founding father of Geography. Regardless of the doubts about Homer’s existence, one thing is certain: he never was a mapmaker.
The enclosed map, which represents the conjectural view of the Homeric world was never created by him. It is an imaginary reconstruction of the world as Homer described it in his two poems the
Iliad and the
Odyssey. It is worth mentioning that each of these writings involves strong geographic symbolism. They can be seen as descriptive pictures of life and warfare in the
Bronze Age and the illustrated plans of actual journeys. Thus, each one develops a philosophical view of the world, which makes it possible to show this information in the form of a map.
The depiction of the earth as it was accepted by the early
Greeks and conceived by
Homer represents a circular flat disk surrounded by a constantly moving
stream of Ocean (Brown, 22). An idea which would be suggested by the appearance of the horizon -- as it is seen from a mountaintop or from a seacoast. Homer’s knowledge of the Earth was very limited. He and his Greek contemporaries knew very little of the Earth beyond
Egypt -- as far as the Libyan desert, the south-west coast of
Asia Minor and the north side of the Greek homeland. Furthermore, the coast of the Black Sea was only known through myths and legends that circulated during his time. In his poems there is no mention of Europe and Asia as geographical concepts (Thompson, 21), and no mention of the Phoenicians either (Thompson, 40).
This seams strange if we recall that the origin of the name
Oceanus -- a term used by Homer in his poems -- belonged to the Phoenicians (Thomson, 27). That is why the big part of Homer’s world that is portrayed on this map represents lands that border on the
Aegean Sea. It is worth noting that even through Greeks believed that they were in the middle of the earth, they also thought that the edges of the world’s disk were inhabited by savage, monstrous
barbarians and strange animals and monsters, Homer’s Odyssey mentions a great many of them.
Additional written statements about ancient geography can be found in
Hesiod’s poems, written probably during the eighth century BCE (Kirsh, 1). Through the lyrics of
Works and Days and
Theogony he shows to his contemporaries some definite geographical knowledge. He introduces the names of such rivers as
Neil,
Ister (
Danube), the shores of the
Bosporus and the
Euxine (
Black Sea), the coast of
Gaul, the island of
Sicily, and a few other regions and rivers (Keane, 6-7). His advanced geographical knowledge had not only predated Greek colonial expansions but also was used in the earliest Greek world maps, produced by the first Greek mapmakers such as
Anaximander and
Hecataeus of Miletus.
Early Greek maps
In classical antiquity, maps were drawn by
Anaximander,
Hecataeus of Miletus,
Herodotus,
Eratosthenes, and
Ptolemy using both explorers' observations and a mathematical approach.
The first steps in the development of intellectual thought in
ancient Greece belonged to
Ionians from their well-known city of
Miletus in
Asia Minor. Miletus was favourably placed to absorb aspects of
Babylonian knowledge and to profit from the expanding commerce of the
Mediterranean. The earliest ancient Greek who is said to have constructed a map of the world is Anaximander of Miletus (c. 611 – 546 BCE), pupil of
Thales. He believed that the earth was a cylindrical form , like a stone pillar and suspended in space.
[7] The inhabited part of his world was a circular, disk-shaped, and presumably located on the upper surface of the cylinder (Brown, 24).
Anaximander was the first ancient Greek to draw a map of the known world. It is for this reason that he is considered by many to be the first mapmaker (Dilke, 23). A scarcity of archaeological and written evidence prevents us from giving any assessment of his map. What we can assume is that he portrayed land and sea in a map form. Unfortunately, any definite geographical knowledge that he included in his map is lost. Although the map has not survived,
Hecataeus of Miletus (550 – 475 BCE) produced another map 50 years later that that he claimed was an improved version of the map of his illustrious predecessor.
The world according to Hekatæus, 500BCE
Hecatæus’s map describes the earth as a circular plate with an encircling Ocean and Greece in the centre of the world. This was a very popular contemporary Greek worldview, derived originally from the Homeric poems. Also, like many other early maps in antiquity his map has no scale. As units of measurements, this map used ‘days of sailing’ on the sea and
‘days of marching’ on dry land (Goode, 2). The purpose of this map was to accompany Hecatæus’s geographical work that was called
Periodos Ges -- Journey Round the World (Dilke, 24). The Periodos Ges was divided into two books, 'Europe' and 'Asia', the latter also included Libya -- which was an ancient term for Africa.
The work follows the assumption of the author that the world is divided into two continents, Asia and Europe. He depicts the line between the Pillars of Hercules through the Bosporus and the Don River as a boundary between the two. Hecatæus was the first writer who thought that the Caspian flows into the circumference ocean -- an idea that persisted long into the Hellenic period. He was particularly informative on the Black Sea by adding more geographic places that were already known to Greeks through the colonization process. To the north of the Danube, according to Hecatæus, were the Rhipæan (gusty) Mountains, beyond which lived the Hyperboreans -- men of the far north.
Hecatæus depicted the origin of the Nile River at the southern circumference ocean. His view of the Nile seems to have been that it came, from the southern circumference ocean. This assumption helped Hecatæus solve the mystery of the annual flooding of the Nile. He believed that the waves of the ocean were a primary cause of this occurrence (Tozer, 63). It is worth mentioning that a similar map based upon one designed by Hecataeus was intended to aid political decision-making. According to
Herodotus, it was engraved upon a bronze tablet and was carried to Sparta by Aristagoras during the revolt of the Ionian cities against
Persian rule from 499 to 494 BCE.
The world according to Anaximenes, c.500BCE
of Miletus (6th century BCE), who studied under Anaximander, rejected the views of his teacher regarding the shape of the earth and instead, he visualized the earth as a rectangular form supported by compressed air. What is interesting here is that his incorrect idea about the shape of the world somehow persisted in the form of how the contemporary maps are presented today. Most current maps are limited to this rectangular shape (i.e. border of the map (neatline), computer screen, or document page).
Pythagoras of Samos (c. 560 – 480 BCE) speculated about the notion of a spherical earth with a central fire at its core. He is also credited with the introduction of a model that divides a spherical earth into five zones. One hot, two temperate, and two cold -- northern and southern. It seems likely that he illustrated his division in the form of a map, however, no evidence of this has survived to the present.
Scylax, a sailor, made a record of his
Mediterranean voyages in c. 515 BCE. This was the first Greek set of
periploi, or sailing instructions, which became the basis for many future mapmakers, especially in the medieval period.
[8]
Herodotus (484-424 BCE)
The way in which the geographical knowledge of the Greeks advanced from the previous assumptions of the earth’s shape was through Herodotus conceptual view of the world. This map also did not survive and many have speculated that it was never produced. Nevertheless the map is well documented by the author -- Herodotus -- in his work
Geographica, which has survived. Below is a reconstruction of his map, that he presumably produced in 440 BCE.
The world according to Herodotus, 440BCE
Herodotus traveled very extensively, collecting information and documenting his findings in his books on Europe, Asia and Libya. He also combined his knowledge with what he learned from the people he met.
Herodotus rejected the prevailing view of most 5th century maps that the earth is a circular plate surrounded by Ocean. In his map he describes the earth as an irregular shape with oceans surrounding only Asia and Africa. He introduces names such as Atlantic Sea and
Erythrean Sea. He also divided the world into three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. He depicted the boundary of Europe as the line from the Pillars of Hercules through the Bosporus and the area between Caspian Sea and Indus River. And he regarded the Nile as the limit between Asia and Africa. He speculated that the extent of Europe was much greater than was assumed at the time and left Europe’s shape to be determined by future research.
In the case of Africa, he believed that except for the small stretch of land in the vicinity of Suez, the continent was in fact surrounded by water. However, he definitely disagreed with his predecessors and contemporaries about its presumed circular shape. He based his theory on the story of Pharaoh
Necho II, the ruler of Egypt between 609 and 594 BCE, who had sent
Phoenicians to circumnavigate Africa. Apparently, it took them three years, but they certainly did prove his idea. As with Europe, this great philosopher left future researchers determine Africa’s shape. As far the Neil River, he speculated that it started as far west as the
Ister River in Europe, and cut Africa through the middle. He was the first philosopher to assume that the Caspian Sea was separated from other seas and he recognised northern Scythia as one of the coldest inhabited lands in the world.
He was also the first mapmaker to depict other geographical features on a map such as the Persian ‘Royal Road’ that he fully documented -- with its royal stations and superb inns -- in his work
Geographica. However, like many other early maps in antiquity, Herodotus’s map also has no scale. Herodotus also made similar mistakes to his predecessors. He accepted a clear distinction between the civilized Greeks in the centre of the earth and the barbarians on the world's edges. In his
Histories we can see very clearly that the world becomes stranger and stranger when one travels away from Greece, until one has reached the ends of the earth, where humans behave like savages.
Herodotus wrote the
Histories in the mid-400's B.C. Although, his work was dedicated to the story of the Greeks' long struggle with the Persian Empire, Herodotus also included everything he knew about the geography, history, and peoples of the world. Thus, his works provide a detailed picture of the known world of the 5th century BCE.
Spherical Earth and Meridians
Whereas a number of previous Greek philosophers assumed the earth to be spherical,
Aristotle (384 – 322BCE) is the one to be credited with proving the earth’s sphericity. Those arguments can be summarized as follows:
★ The
lunar eclipse is always circular.
★ Ships seem to sink as they move away from view and pass the horizon.
★ Some stars can only be seen from certain parts of the Earth.
It is unclear if he ever produced a map of the world according to his specifications, but if he did we have yet to find it.
A vital contribution to mapping the reality of the world came with a scientific estimate of the circumference of the earth. This event has been described as the first scientific attempt to give geographical studies a mathematical basis. The man credited for this achievement was
Eratosthenes (275-195 BCE). As described by
George Sarton, historian of science, “there was among them [Eratosthenes’s contemporaries] a man of genius but as he was working in a new field they were too stupid to recognize him†(Noble, 27). His work including On the
Measurement of the Earth and
Geographica has only survived in the writings of later philosophers such as
Cleomedes and
Strabo. He was a devoted geographer who set out to reform and perfect the map of the world. Eratosthenes argued that accurate mapping, even if in two dimensions only, depends upon the establishment of an accurate linear measurements. He was able to calculate the circumference of the Earth within 0.5 percent accuracy by calculating the heights of shadows on different parts of the earth at a given time. The first in
Alexandria, the other further up the
Nile. He had the distance between the two shadows calculated and then their height. From this he determined the difference in angle between the two points and calculated how large a circle would be made by adding in the rest of the degrees to 360. His great achievement in the field of cartography was the use of new techniques called (A)
meridian -- his imaginary north/south line -- and (B)
parallel -- his imaginary west/east line.
[9] These axis lines were placed over the map of the earth with their origin in the city of Rhodes and divided the world into sectors. Then, Eratosthenes used these earth partitions to reference places on the map. He also was the first person to correctly divide Earth into five climatic regions- a torrid zone across the middle, two frigid zones at extreme north and south, and two temperate bands in between. He was also the first person to use the word "
geography".
Claudius
Ptolemy (A.D.
90-
168) thought that with the aid of astronomy and mathematics the earth could be mapped very accurately. Ptolemy revolutionized the depiction of the spherical earth on the map by using
perspective projection, and suggested precise methods for fixing the position of geographic features on its surface using
coordinate system --
parallels of
latitude and
meridians of
longitude.
[10][11]
Ptolemy's eight-book atlas ''
Geographia'' is a prototype of modern mapping and
GIS. It included an index of place-names, with the latitude and longitude of each place to guide the search, scale, conventional signs with legends, and the practice of orienting maps so that North is at the top and East to the right of the map -- a universal custom today.
But for all his important innovations Ptolemy was not infallible. His most important error was a miscalculation of the circumference of the earth. He believed that
Eurasia covered 180° of the globe, which convinced
Christopher Columbus to sail across the Atlantic to look for a simpler and faster way to travel to India. Had Columbus known that the true figure was much greater, it is conceivable that he would never have set out on his momentous voyage.
Islamic Mapmaking
In the Middle Ages, Muslim scholars continued and advanced on the mapmaking traditions of earlier cultures. Most used Ptolemy's methods; but they also took advantage of what explorers and merchants learned in their travels across the Muslim world, from Spain to India to Africa, and beyond in trade relationships with China, and Russia.
[8]
With funding from
Roger II of Sicily (1097-1154),
Abu Abdullah Ibn Idrisi (born 1099) wrote his medieval atlas, 'Geography', or '
The Recreation for Him Who Wishes to Travel Through the Countries' in 1154. Besides drawing on the knowledge collected at the University of Cordoba, Roger and Idrisi paid draftsmen to make journeys and map their routes. The book describes the earth as a sphere with a circumference of 22,900 miles but maps it in 70 rectangular sections. Notable features include the correct dual sources of the Nile, the coast of Ghana and mentions of Norway. Climate zones were a chief organizational principle. A second and shortened copy from 1192 called
Garden of Joys is known by scholars as the
Little Idrisi.
[8]
Ibn-Battutah (1304-1368?) wrote "Rihlah" (Travels) based on three decades of journeys, covering more than 120,000 km through northern Africa, southern Europe, and much of Asia.
China
In
China, the earliest known geographical Chinese writing dates back to the 5th century BC, during the beginning of the
Warring States (
481 BC-
221 BC).
This was the 'Yu Gong' ('Tribute of Yu') chapter of the book ''Shu Jing'' (''Historical Classic''). The book describes the traditional nine provinces, their kinds of soil, their characteristic products and economic goods, their tributary goods, their trades and vocations, their state revenues and agricultural systems, and the various rivers and lakes listed and placed accordingly.
[14] The nine provinces in the time of this geographical work was very small in terrain size compared to what modern China occupies today. In fact, its description pertained to areas of the
Yellow River, the lower valleys of the
Yangtze, with the plain between them and the Shandong peninsula, and to the west the most northern parts of the
Wei River and the
Han River were known (along with the southern parts of modern day
Shanxi province).
From the 1st century AD onwards, official Chinese historical texts contained a geographical section (Di Li Ji), which was often an enormous compilation of changes in place-names and local administrative divisions controlled by the ruling dynasty, descriptions of mountain ranges, river systems, taxable products, etc.
[15] From the time of the 5th century BC ''Shu Jing'' forward, Chinese geographical writing provided more concrete information and less legendary element. This example can be seen in the 4th chapter of the ''Huainan Zi'' (Book of the Master of Huainan), compiled under the editorship of Prince
Liu An in 139 BC during the
Han Dynasty (
202 BC-
202 AD). The chapter gave general descriptions of
topography in a systematic fashion, given visual aids by the use of maps (di tu) due to the efforts of Liu An and his associate Zuo Wu.
[16] In
Chang Chu's ''Hua Yang Guo Chi'' (''Historical Geography of
Szechuan'') of 347 AD, not only rivers, trade routes, and various tribes were described, but it also wrote of a 'Ba Jun Tu Jing' ('Map of Szechuan'), which had been made much earlier in 150 AD.
[17]
Local map-making such as the one of Szechuan mentioned above, became a widespread tradition of Chinese geographical works by the 6th century, as noted in the bibliography of the ''Sui Shu''.
[18] It is during this time of the
Southern and Northern Dynasties that the
Liang Dynasty (
502-
557 AD) cartographers also began carving maps into stone steles (alongside the maps already drawn and painted on paper and silk).
[19] In 610 AD
Emperor Yang of Sui ordered government officials from throughout the empire to document the customs, products, and geographical features of their local areas and provinces, providing descriptive writing and drawing them all onto separate maps, which would be sent to the imperial secretariat in the capital city.
The
Tang Dynasty (
618-
907) also had its fair share of cartographers, including the works of
Xu Jing-zong in 658 AD,
Wang Ming-yuan in 661 AD, and
Wang Zhong-si in 747 AD.
Arguably the greatest geographer and cartographer of the Tang period was
Jia Dan (
730-
805), whom
Emperor Dezong of Tang entrusted in 785 to complete a map of China with her recently former inland colonies of Central Asia, the massive and detailed work completed in 801 AD, called the ''Hai Nei Hua Yi Tu'' (Map of both Chinese and Barbarian Peoples within the (Four) Seas).
The map was 30 ft long and 33 ft high in dimension, mapped out on a grid scale of 1 inch equaling 100
li (unit) (the Chinese equivalent of the mile/kilometer).
Jia Dan is also known for having described the
Persian Gulf region with great detail, along with lighthouses that were erected at the mouth of the Persian Gulf by the medieval
Iranians in the
Abbasid period (refer to article on
Tang Dynasty for more).
During the
Song Dynasty (
960-
1279 AD)
Emperor Taizu of Song ordered
Lu Duo-sun in 971 AD to update and 're-write all the Tu Jing in the world', which would seem to be a daunting task for one individual, who was sent out throughout the provinces to collect texts and as much data as possible.
With the aid of
Song Zhun, the massive work was completed in 1010 AD, with some 1566 chapters.
The later ''Song Shi'' historical text stated (
Wade-Giles spelling):
Like the earlier Liang Dynasty stone-stele maps (mentioned above), there were large and intricately-carved stone stele maps of the Song period. For example, the 3 ft squared stone stele map of an anonymous artist in 1137 AD, following the grid scale of 100 li squared for each grid square.
[20] What is truly remarkable about this map is the incredibly precise detail of coastal outlines and river systems in China (refer to Needham's Volume 3, Plate LXXXI for an image). The famous 11th century scientist and
polymath statesman
Shen Kuo (
1031-
1095) was also a geographer and cartographer.
[21] His largest
atlas included twenty three maps of China and foreign regions that were drawn at a uniform scale of 1:900,000.
[22] Shen also created a
three dimensional raised-relief map using sawdust, wood, beeswax, and wheat paste, while representing the topography and specific locations of a frontier region to the imperial court.
Shen Kuo's contemporary,
Su Song (
1020-
1101), was a cartographer who created detailed maps in order to resolve a territorial border dispute between the Song Dynasty and the
Liao Dynasty.
[23]
Chinese maps
Phei Hsiu (
Pei Xiu) the "father of Chinese cartography" produced an elaborate map of the country.
Surviving Chinese maps of the world date from the Song dynasty (960-1279). The map carved in stone, shows 500 settlements and a dozen rivers in China, and extends as far as Korea and India. On the reverse, a copy of a more ancient map uses grid coordinates in a scale of 1:1,500,000 and shows the coastline of China with great accuracy.
[24]
The
Da Ming hunyi tu map, dating from about 1390, is in multicolour. The horizontal scale is 1:820,000 and the vertical scale is 1:1,060,000.
[24]
In 1579,
Luo Hongxian published the
Guang Yutu atlas, including more than 40 maps, a grid system, and a systematic way of representing major landmarks such as mountains, rivers, roads and borders. The Guang Yutu incorporates the discoveries of naval explorer
Zheng He's 15th century voyages along the coasts of China, Southeast Asia, India and Africa.
[24]
From the 16th and 17th centuries, several examples survive of maps focused on cultural information. Gridlines are not used on either
Yu Shi's
Gujin xingsheng zhi tu (1555) or
Zhang Huang's
Tushu bian (1613); instead, illustrations and annotations show mythical places, exotic foreign peoples, administrative changes and the deeds of historic and legendary heroes.
[24]
The Korean made
Kangnido based on two Chinese maps, which describes the
Old World.
Pacific Islands
The Polynesian peoples who explored and settled the Pacific islands in the first two millenniums AD used maps to navigate across large distances. A surviving map from the
Marshall Islands uses sticks tied in a grid with palm strips representing wave and wind patterns, with shells attached to show the location of islands.
[28] Other maps were created as needed using temporary arrangements of stones or shells.
[29]
Early European maps
The
Gough Map, a road map of 14th century Britain
Medieval maps in Europe were mainly symbolic in form along the lines of the much earlier
Babylonian World Map. Known as
Mappa Mundi (cloth of the world) these maps were circular or symmetrical cosmological diagrams representing the earth's single land mass as disk-shaped and surrounded by ocean.
[2]
Roger Bacon's investigations of map projections and the appearance of
portolano and then
portolan charts for plying the European trade routes were rare innovations of the period.
In the Renaissance, with the rediscovery of classical works, maps became more like surveys once again, while the discovery of the Americas by Europeans and the subsequent effort to control and divide those lands revived interest in scientific mapping methods. Peter Whitfield, the author of several books on the history of maps, credits European mapmaking as a factor in the global spread of western power: "Men in Seville, Amsterdam or London had access to knowledge of America, Brazil, or India, while the
native peoples knew only their own immediate environment" (Whitfield).
Notable cartographers of the Age of Exploration
A celestial map from the 17th century, by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit.
★ '15th century': The monk
Nicholas Germanus added the first new maps to Ptolemy's ''Geographica''.
http://www.phil.uni-passau.de/histhw/tutcarto/english/index-frames-en.html
★ '1485': Portuguese cartographer Pedro Reinel made the oldest known signed Portuguese nautical chart.
★ '1492': German merchant Martin Behaim (1459 - 1507) made the oldest surviving terrestrial globe, but it lacked the Americas.[2]
★ '1500': Spanish cartographer, explorer and conquistador Juan de la Cosa made several maps of which the only survivor is the Mappa Mundi of 1500. It is the first known European cartographic representation of the Americas.
★ '1502': Unknown Portuguese cartographer made the Cantino planisphere, the first nautical chart to implicitely represent latitudes.
★ '1485': Portuguese cartographer Pedro Reinel made the oldest known nautical chart with a scale of latitudes.
★ '1507': Martin Waldseemüller's World Map was the first to use the term America for the Western continents (after explorer Amerigo Vespucci).[2]
★ '1513': Turkish admiral Piri Reis prepares his world map, noteworthy for its depiction of a southern landmass that some controversially claim is evidence for early awareness of the existence of Antarctica.
★ '1519' : Portuguese cartographers Lopo Homem, Pedro Reinel and Jorge Reinel made the group of maps known today as the Miller Atlas or Lopo Homem - Reinéis Atlas.
★ '1569': Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594) was a Flemish cartographer who in his quest to make the world “look right†on the maps developed new projection (called Mercator projection) using mathematical formulas. From then on, the image of the world that he produced on his map from 1569 becomes a conventional view of the world that we are accustomed today. It is worth noting that scientists at the US Geological Survey have designed a Space Oblique Mercator Projection -- which is based on the Mercator’s projection -- that allows mapping from satellites with very little distortion.
★ '1570': Antwerp cartographer Abraham Ortelius published the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.[2]
★ '1608': Captain John Smith published a map of Virginia's coastline.[34]
★ '1670s': The astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini beganwork on the first modern topographic map in France. It was completed in 1789 or 1793 by his grandson Cassini de Thury.[35][36]
★ '1715': Herman Moll published the Beaver Map, one of the most famous early maps of North America, which he copied from a 1698 work by Nicolas de Fer
★ '1763-1767': Captain James Cook mapped Newfoundland.
Modern cartography
The Greenwich prime meridian became the international standard reference for cartographers in 1884.
In the United States in the 17th and 18th centuries, explorers mapped trails and army engineers surveyed government lands. Two agencies were established to provide detailed, large-scale mapping. They are now known as the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Ocean Survey.
During the 1900's, maps became more abundant due to improvements in printing and photography that made production cheaper and easier. Airplanes made it possible to photograph large areas at a time. Also, since the mid-1900's, the use of computers in map-making has helped to store, sort, and arrange data for mapping in order to create map projections.[37]
Technological changes
In cartography, technology has continually changed in order to meet the demands of new generations of mapmakers and map users. The first maps were manually constructed with brushes and parchment and therefore varied in quality and were limited in distribution. The advent of the compass, printing press, telescope, sextant, quadrant and vernier allowed for the creation of far more accurate maps and the ability to make accurate reproductions.
Advances in photochemical technology, such as the lithographic and photochemical processes, have allowed for the creation of maps that have fine details, do not distort in shape and resist moisture and wear. This also eliminated the need for engraving which further shortened the time it takes to make and reproduce maps.
In the mid to late 20th century advances in electronic technology have led to a new revolution in cartography. Specifically computer hardware devices such as computer screens, plotters, printers, scanners (remote and document) and analytic stereo plotters along with visualization, image processing, spatial analysis and database software, have democratized and greatly expanded the making of maps. See also digital raster graphic and History of web mapping.
See also
★ Cartography
★ List of cartographers
★ Map projections
★ Geographic information system
★ Ancient world maps
★ pictorial maps
★ Mappa mundi
★ World map
★ Here be dragons
★ Terra Incognita
★ Web mapping
References
1. http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ancient%20Web%20Pages/100mono.html
2. http://www.phil.uni-passau.de/histhw/tutcarto/english/index-frames-en.html
3. http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ancientimages/100B.jpeg
4. http://www.geography.wisc.edu/histcart/series.html#v1
5. http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ancient%20Web%20Pages/100mono.html
6. http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/NIP/PUB93/NSC/NSCFIG7.html]
7. http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ancientimages/106A.GIF
8. http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/EMwebpages/219mono.html
9. http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ancientimages/112B.jpg
10. http://geology.cwru.edu/~huwig/catalog/slides/769.G.2.jpg
11. http://www.phil.uni-passau.de/histhw/tutcarto/english/index-frames-en.html]
12. http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/EMwebpages/219mono.html
13. http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/EMwebpages/219mono.html
14. Needham, Volume 3, 500.
15. Needham, Volume 3, 508.
16. Needham, Volume 3, 507-508.
17. Needham, Volume 3, 517.
18. Needham, Volume 3, 518.
19. Needham, Volume 3, 543.
20. Needham, Volume 3, Plate LXXXI
21. Needham, Volume 3, 541.
22. Sivin, III, 22.
23. Wright, 213.
24. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~asia/CartographyPaper.html
25. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~asia/CartographyPaper.html
26. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~asia/CartographyPaper.html
27. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~asia/CartographyPaper.html
28. http://www.she-philosopher.com/gallery/seachart.html
29. http://www.spiritofaloha.com/features/0106/ancientMap.html
30. http://www.phil.uni-passau.de/histhw/tutcarto/english/index-frames-en.html
31. http://www.phil.uni-passau.de/histhw/tutcarto/english/index-frames-en.html
32. http://www.phil.uni-passau.de/histhw/tutcarto/english/index-frames-en.html
33. http://www.phil.uni-passau.de/histhw/tutcarto/english/index-frames-en.html
34. http://www.virtualjamestown.org/maps1.html
35. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9020657
36. http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Topographic-Map.html
37. http://www.thesolutionsite.com/lesson/1075/rayonelB1.htm
★ History of Cartography, Bagrow, L., revised by R.A. Skelton, , , Transaction Publishers, 1986,
★ Elements of Cartography, Robinson, A.H., , , John Wiley & Sons, 1953, ISBN
★ Early Thematic Mapping: In the History of Cartography., Robinson, A.H., , , The University of Chicago Press., 1982, ISBN
★ Crawford, P.V. 1973 The perception of graduated squares as cartographic symbols. ''Cartographic Journal'' 10, no.2:85-88.
★ The History of Cartography Volume 1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean., J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds), , , University of Chicago Press, 1987, ISBN 0-226-31633-5
★ The History of Cartography Volume 2, Book 1: Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies., J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds), , , University of Chicago Press, 1992, ISBN 0-226-31635-1
★ The History of Cartography Volume 2, Book 2: Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies., J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds), , , University of Chicago Press, 1994, ISBN 0-226-31637-8
★ The History of Cartography Volume 2, Book 3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies. [Full text of the Introduction by David Woodward and G. Malcolm Lewis], J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds), , , University of Chicago Press, 1998, ISBN 0-226-90728-7
★ The History of Cartography Volume 3 (in press, 2005): Cartography in the European Renaissance., J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds), , , University of Chicago Press, 2005, ISBN 0-226-90733-3
★ The History of Cartography Volume 4 (edited by D. Graham Burnett, Matthew Edney, and Mary G. Sponberg Pedley with Founding Editor David Woodward): Cartography in the European Enlightenment., J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds), , , University of Chicago Press, 1987, ISBN 0-226-31633-5
★ The History of Cartography Volume 5: Cartography in the Nineteenth Century, J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds), , , University of Chicago Press, , ISBN
★ The History of Cartography Volume 4: Cartography in the Twentieth Century, J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds), , , University of Chicago Press, , ISBN
★ Some Truth with Maps: A Primer on Symbolization & Design, MacEachren, A.M., , , The Pennsylvania State University, 1994, ISBN
★ How Maps Work, MacEachren, A.M., , , The Guilford Press, 1995, ISBN
★ How to Lie with Maps, Monmonier, Mark, , , University of Chicago Press, 1991, ISBN 0-226-53421-9
★ Mapping It Out, Monmonier, Mark, , , University of Chicago Press, 1993, ISBN
★ Needham, Joseph (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth''. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
★ ESRI. 2004. ESRI Cartography: ''Capabilities and Trends''. Redlands, CA. White Paper
★ Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2005. [1]
★ Jeer, S. 1997. Traditional Color Coding for Land Uses. ''American Planning Association''. pp. 4-5
★ Imus, D. and Dunlavey, P. 2002. ''Back to the Drawing Board: Cartography vs the Digital Workflow''. MT. Hood, Oregon.
★ Olson, Judy M. 1975. Experience and the improvement of cartographic communication. ''Cartographic Journal'' 12, no. 2:94-108
★ Phillips, R., De Lucia, A., and Skelton, A. 1975. Some Objective Tests of the Legibility of Relief Maps. ''The Cartographic Journal''. 12, pp. 39-46
★ Phillips, R. 1980. A Comparison of Color and Visual Texture as Codes for use as Area Symbols on Relief Maps. ''Ergonomics''. 23, pp. 1117-1128.
★ A History of Spaces: Cartographic Reason, Mapping, and the Geo-Coded World, Pickles, John, , , Taylor & Francis, 2003, ISBN 0-415-14497-3
★ Rice, M., Jacobson, R., Jones. D. 2003. ''Object Size Discrimination and Non-visual Cartographic Symbolization''. CA. pp. 1-12.
★ Thematic Cartography and Geographic Visualization, Slocum, T., , , Prentice Hall, 1999, ISBN
★ Sivin, Nathan (1995). Science in Ancient China. Brookfield, Vermont: VARIORUM, Ashgate Publishing.
★ The Mapmakers, Wilford, John Noble, , , Vintage Books, 2000, ISBN 0-375-70850-2
★ "Map Imitations" in Detecting the Truth: Fakes, Forgeries and Trickery, a virtual museum exhibition at Library and Archives Canada
★ Wright, David Curtis (2001) ''The History of China''. Westport: Greenwood Press.
External links
★ The history of cartography at the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St. Andrews, Scotland
★ Mapping History - a learning resource from the British Library
★ Modern Medieval Map Myths: The Flat World, Ancient Sea-Kings, and Dragons
★ Concise Bibliography of the History of Cartography, Newberry Library
See Maps for more links to historical maps; however, most of the largest sites are listed at the sites linked below.
★ Map history has extensive links to online map resources, including several large collections of images online and articles on the history of cartography.
★ Eratosthenes Map of the Earth, and Measuring of its Circumference at Convergence
★ A listing of over 5000 websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar
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