A WESTERN HISTORY OF MAPS Jan Vermeer (1668-69)

ANCIENT CARTOGRAPHY

Herodotus (5th century b.c.e.) Greek historian, amazingly accurate—he had traveled the world and drew from personal experiences

T-O Map (7th century) T in O (Orbis Terrarium, wheel maps). Produced in Spain, was the first printed map in 1472. Very simplistic, but shows that cultural worldview guides mapmaking too. First to use the term “Mediterranean”. Oriented to East (Paradise). Tanais (Don River). Circle is ocean.

Macrobian Map (15th century) Popularity of this type of map persisted into the 15th century, even though exploration was taking place by then. (Prince Henry the Navigator)

Al-Idrisi (12th century) Studying the work of Ptolemy (mapping of the stars, methods on drawing maps). Also a history of trade/travel which informed their mapmaking. Advanced methodology for the time, largely ignored by medieval European scholars.

Chinese Map (1402) Asia at the center, also surrounded by ocean. China/India form a huge mass. Arabian peninsula and Africa hang to the west. Europe sits atop. Korea to the east. Japan floats in the South China Sea.

Native depiction of Southeast, 18th century (with English additions)

Jerusalem (12th century) Tales of the crusades, reclaiming the Holy Land.

Vesconte (14th century) Still orienting the east to the top of the map. Using typical medieval colors (green for water, brown for mountain ranges, cities are crowns/castles in red, landmasses are white).

Ptolemaic Map (15th century) Use of Ptolemy’s texts/methods represents an attempt by medieval cartographers to start working toward more accurate mapping. Literal red sea.

Vinland Map

Waldesmuller (1507) Remarkable piece of work for accuracy. Note the location and size of America (Waldesmuller is the first to label the new continent as such). Only coastline depicted, but he does put an ocean between the known world and the new world.

Contarini (16th century) Different perspective shown here. An attempt to recognize the spherical.

Sixteenth-century globe and engraving Globes not unknown, but very expensive and rare. Globes expensive and rare.

1569 Mercator Map Mercator’s projection designed to help navigators. Longitude lines drawn in on a grid (graticule) so that compass bearings could be plotted as a straight line (help keep sailors on course). This meant sacrificing true scale of landmasses. His construction would influence maps of the future. Simon Winchester book, “The Map that Changed the World.”

Speed’s Map (17th century) Depiction of two hemispheres, remarkable accuracy of Americas given very limited information. Maps as works of art.

Map of the British Empire By 1921, covered ¼ of the world’s population and ¼ of the land. Pink was the traditional color used to designate areas of British occupancy.

1942 Standard World Map Americas as center, strange division of Eurasia.

Peters Projection (1970’s) Likened to dishrags on a laundry line. More accurate sizing, but distorted images, elongated.

CIA Standard (2001) Spherical depiction brings scale back.

CIA Standard (2004) Mercator sizing of continents still appears.

A Different View What if north isn’t “up”? Direction is arbitrary.