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HISTORY MAP ARCHIVE
Browse the Map Archive
The art and history of cartography, aka mapmaking,
goes back to ancient times.
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The oldest maps found so far date from
about 2300 BC and were created by the Babylonians, who drew their
maps on clay tablets.
The Egyptians, too, were
busy mapmakers.
All these maps were focused on
specific areas of the world.
It took the philosophizing
Greeks to get us maps of the entire world, maps of the earth and the
globe.
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Or at least what they thought it could look like.
Our English word map derives from the Latin word
mappa, meaning napkin or cloth on which maps were
drawn.
The Map Archive
This map collection is
indexed chronologically and by continent.
Some Map History and
Trivia
This little gem is a world map
compiled around 700 to 500 BC
by the ancient Babylonians:
Babylonian World Map
British Museum London
See
more details about this ancient map provided
by the British Museum.
And here is
Herodotus'
Map of the World.
MAP OF THE WORLD — HERODOTUS
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Comparing drawings from several lunar
eclipses,
Aristotle observed that Earth
cast always a circular shadow on the moon, no matter the moon's
trajectory. Thus he figured that Earth had to be a sphere.
By 150 BC, the philosopher Crates
had fashioned a globe, and others followed. The oldest globe in the world
is in a German museum:
Martin Behaim's 1492
Globe is the Oldest One in Existence
More from the
Germanisches Nationalmuseum
Photo Alexander Franke / Wiki
By the way, is Russia in Europe or in
Asia? Here is your answer.
MAP OF EUROPEAN RUSSIA
Source Unknown
More History
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