A lot has changed in the world of cartography since people first started trying to map the world, with advancements in knowledge and technology over the centuries leading to increased accuracy. And yet each map offers a subjective view of the world, one that is shaped by the specific time and culture in which it was produced. Here are 20 such pieces throughout history that have changed humanity’s understanding of the world—from an ancient Roman road map to a poverty map of Victorian London.
- Babylonian Map of the World
- Ptolemy’s Geographia
- Tabula Peutingeriana
- Yu Ji Tu
- Tabula Rogeriana
- Hereford Mappa Mundi
- Kangnido
- The Fra Mauro Map
- The Waldseemüller Map
- Diogo Ribeiro’s World Map
- The Mercator Projection
- The Codex Quetzalecatzin
- Atlas Maior
- The Cassini Map of France
- John Snow’s Cholera Outbreak Map
- Charles Booth’s Poverty Map
- Robert Peary’s Map of Peary Channel
- Halford Mackinder’s “The Natural Seats of Power”
- The Gall-Peters Projection
- Google Maps
Babylonian Map of the World
The earliest known world map was etched sometime around the 6th century BCE onto a small clay tablet measuring just 4.8 by 3.2 inches. It depicts the world from the Babylonians’ point of view and is comprised of two concentric circles surrounded by triangles (some of which are on portions of the tablet that were damaged and lost), giving it a star-like shape.
The Euphrates River divides the central circle with Babylon straddling it in the northern section. Other ancient cities and civilizations are also depicted, including Susa (correctly in the south) and Habban (incorrectly in the northwest). The space between the two circles is described as the “bitter river” (i.e. the sea), and the triangular sections are thought to be either mythological places or real places that were unknown to the Mesopotamians.
Ptolemy’s Geographia
Claudius Ptolemy was an Alexandrian polymath who used his skills to create an atlas around 150 CE; this gathered together all of the known geographic information of the 2nd century Greco-Roman world. Ptolemy plotted around 8000 places using latitude and longitude grid lines.
Although Ptolemy’s calculations were inaccurate—leading to distortions in distances—he was the first to use mathematics in cartography. Certain aspects of his world map, like his successful plotting of the Nile River, are surprisingly accurate for the time. But his speculation that the Indian Ocean is enclosed by a land bridge connecting Africa and Asia missed the mark.
Unfortunately, no original copies of Ptolemy’s map have survived. His Geographia was translated into Arabic by al-Khwārizmīin in the 9th century and then lost for hundreds of years. It was rediscovered in the 14th century by Byzantine scholars and then widely distributed in Europe thanks to Jacopo d’Angelo’s 1406 Latin translation.
Tabula Peutingeriana
The Roman Empire brought about many innovations. In the words of Reg (John Cleese) in Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), the Romans made advancements with “the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation,” and “the roads go without saying, don’t they?!”
With such a vast road network—known as the cursus publicus—it’s no surprise that the Romans had a map. The Tabula Peutingeriana is unusually long, measuring 22 feet in length but only around a foot wide. This shape means that the map isn’t at all geographically accurate. Distances from north to south are squashed, while east to west are stretched. Still, the Tabula Peutingeriana did function as a practical overview of the Roman Empire and slightly beyond (with areas in India and even China being mapped). It meticulously depicts 555 cities and 3500 points of interest, ranging from temples to rivers.
The only known copy of the Tabula Peutingeriana is from 1265, but a version of it was first created in the 4th century. Only 11 sheets of the 1265 map have survived; it’s thought that a 12th sheet depicted Britain, the Iberian Peninsula, and Morocco.
Yu Ji Tu
While many cartographers were still mixing myth into mapmaking, an unknown Chinese cartographer was striving for geographical accuracy—and largely succeeded. The Yu Ji Tu, or Map of the Tracks of Yu, is a representation of China’s coastline and rivers carved into a stone slab. The stele itself can be dated back to 1137, but the contents of the map may be even older. In depicting the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers and their tributaries, along with a few lakes, a precise grid of 5110 squares is employed, with each square representing 100 li (31 miles). Because it was carved into stone, people wishing to use the map for navigation could simply take a rubbing of it.
Tabula Rogeriana
When Muslim cartographer Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani as-Sabti—usually simply known as al-Idrisi—was asked by Norman King Roger II of Sicily to make an atlas, he had no shortage of information. Al-Idrisi drew on many different cultures while creating his maps, borrowing from Ptolemy’s Geographia, Arabic works, accounts from travelers, and his own experience.
Al-Idrisi completed his Tabula Rogeriana in 1154—15 years after he started working on it. His world map is oriented with north at the bottom: In Islamic cartography, it was standard practice to give Mecca the prime position, hence the map being flipped to place the holy city at the top. Astonishingly, he had calculated the circumference of the Earth to within 10 percent accuracy and the highly detailed map remained the most accurate world map for 300 years.
Hereford Mappa Mundi
Thought to have been created around the turn of the 14th century, the Hereford Mappa Mundi is the largest surviving medieval map—measuring 5.2 by 4.4 feet—and indicates the importance of religion at that time. The map was never intended to be used for navigation. It instead offers a theological representation of the world: East sits at the top of the map, owing to the Christian belief that the Garden of Eden was in the east and should occupy the highest position while Jerusalem takes center stage. Locations and figures from Classical legends and the Bible, such as the Minotaur’s Labyrinth and Noah’s Ark, are among other real cities. There are also images of mythical beings—from Cynocephali (dog-headed people) to a unicorn—peppered across the map.
Kangnido
Another East Asian map that more closely resembles modern maps when compared to the Jerusalem-centered maps being produced in Europe is Korea’s Honil Gangni Yeokdae Gukdo Ji Do, or Kangnido for short. The map was created by Kwon Kun and Yi Hoe and dates back to 1402—making it the oldest surviving map in Korea, and, alongside China’s Da Ming Hunyi Tu, one of the oldest extant maps from all of East Asia.
The Kangnido is one of the first maps to depict the tip of Africa as circumnavigable; its outlines of Korea and Japan are more accurate than its Chinese counterpart. China and Korea are disproportionately large in comparison to other countries, marking their importance as economic and political leaders at the time.
The Fra Mauro Map
One of the first European cartographers to (mostly) do away with the influences of religion and myth and instead adopt a more scientific approach was Venetian monk Fra Mauro. After he was hired by King Alfonso of Portugal, Mauro took a crowdsourcing approach to gathering information for his map. Venice was a lively port city; Mauro spoke to every traveler he could to tap them for geographical wisdom. He also relied on a wealth of written knowledge, including Ptolemy’s Geographia and the travelogues of fellow Venetian Marco Polo.
While Mauro did scatter stories of fantastical creatures and places across his map—including sea monsters and a lake that could turn iron into gold—he also included notes that indicated his skepticism. Mauro’s map was completed in 1459 and, at the time, was the most accurate European representation of Africa (with the bottom being circumnavigable) and Japan (which he correctly drew as an island).
The Waldseemüller Map
When Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Americas in 1492, he thought he had landed on an archipelago off the west coast of Asia. Columbus was proven wrong at the start of the 16th century thanks to Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who revealed it was actually an entirely separate continent. Because previous world maps depicted only Europe, Asia, and Africa, this discovery warranted a new map. In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller published one that included—and named—the newly found continent. Waldseemüller dubbed the landmass “America” to honor Amerigo Vespucci.
The Waldseemüller Map has been called “America’s birth certificate.” A thousand copies were originally printed; in 2003, the only known original to still exist was bought by the Library of Congress for $10 million.
Diogo Ribeiro’s World Map
King Charles V of Spain hired Portuguese mapmaker Diogo Ribeiro to create a map of the known world in the 1520s. Although Ribeiro was aiming for accuracy, there was one part of the map in particular that he got wrong—and it was possibly done intentionally in an act of political manipulation.
Spain and Portugal were fighting for control of the spice trade in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. In 1494, the two countries drew a line through the Atlantic Ocean and agreed that everything on the west side of the line was Spain’s, while everything on the east was Portugal’s. When explorer Ferdinand Magellan found the spice-rich Moluccas islands—which are in modern-day Indonesia—they technically fell into Portuguese territory, but Ribeiro drew them just inside Spain’s section of the map. Maybe he innocently got his measurements wrong, or perhaps he didn’t want to displease his Spanish boss.
The Mercator Projection
Figuring out how to best represent the 3D globe on a 2D map has long been a problem for mapmakers, but in 1569, Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator came up with a solution that worked for sailors. On his projection, the parallel vertical lines of longitude are equally spaced, while the horizontal lines of latitude are spaced further apart the further they are from the equator. This mimics the curvature of the Earth, allowing navigators to plot a straight course on a single compass bearing.
During the 18th century, the Mercator projection became the standard navigational map; during the 19th century it became the standard map in atlases. It’s only relatively recently that the map has lost its dominance due to its flaws—even Google used it until switching to a globe representation in 2018. The increasing space between the latitude lines means that the sizes of landmasses become increasingly distorted the farther away they are from the equator. For instance, Greenland and Africa are depicted as roughly the same size, but the former place is actually 14 times smaller than the latter.
The Codex Quetzalecatzin
The colonization of the American continent didn’t only change European maps; the maps of indigenous cultures also reflected the arrival of the newcomers. The Codex Quetzalecatzin is a rare example of a surviving Mesoamerican manuscript, dating back to the end of the 16th century. The map essentially asserts that the royal descendants of Lord-11 Quetzalecatzin—who are featured in illustrations—have a right to the land that stretches from Mexico City to Puebla.
The Codex Quetzalecatzin is a visual representation of the indigenous Aztec and incoming Spanish cultures mixing. As well as featuring typical Aztec cartographic conventions—such as hieroglyphics and symbols for geographic features—the map also shows Spanish influence, including the use of the Latin alphabet, Spanish place names, and Christian names for some indigenous leaders.
Atlas Maior
Flemish geographer Abraham Ortelius is credited with creating the first modern atlas, Theatrum orbis terrarium, in 1570. While Ortelius’s atlas sold well, they didn’t become properly commercialized until the 17th century, thanks to Willem Blaeu and his sons Joan and Cornelius. Instead of being driven by cartographic improvements, each new edition—which culminated in the Atlas Maior—was designed based on what would sell best. The Atlas Maior was the most expensive book during the mid-17th century and was a lavish showpiece for anyone with deep enough pockets.
The Cassini Map of France
Although triangulation isn’t as commonly employed for maps these days, it was still an innovative method when it was used for the topographic Cassini Map of France. In 1747, King Louis XV hired cartographer César-François Cassini to create a detailed map of France so he could better collect revenue from each province. Nine years later, Cassini offered up the first sheet of the map—created via the triangulation method his grandfather, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, had developed—but Louis no longer wanted to fund the project. Cassini found his own sponsors and set about mapping the rest of France, aided by provincial leaders, triangulation surveyors, local people, and illustrators. The map totaled 182 sheets and measured 36 square feet.
When the French Revolution erupted in 1789, the nearly-completed project was torn from the hands of Cassini’s son, Jean-Dominique, in the name of nationalizing the map. Jean-Dominique wasn’t happy. “Can a painter be divested of his canvas, before having given it his final touches?” he later complained.
The map, even if unfinished, was still incredibly important. Not only was it the most accurate map of France to date, but it also inspired Britain’s state-sponsored Ordnance Survey triangulation maps.
John Snow’s Cholera Outbreak Map
The Soho in London was hit by a cholera outbreak in August of 1854. Within just one week, 10 percent of Soho’s population had died from the disease. At the time, most medical experts believed that cholera was an airborne disease. But physician John Snow disagreed—he thought that the germ was carried in the water. To prove his theory, he turned to cartography. Snow mapped the location of the deaths and discovered that the highest concentration was clustered around a public water pump on Broad Street. It was later discovered that the pump had been contaminated by sewage.
Snow’s map proved to be a landmark in a multitude of ways: It indicated that cholera was a waterborne disease, it led to the improvement of London’s sanitation system, and it demonstrated the utility of combining epidemiology and cartography.
Charles Booth’s Poverty Map
Another world-changing Victorian era map of London is Charles Booth’s 1889 Poverty Map. The press often ran sensationalist stories about the high levels of poverty in cities, and businessman Charles Booth wanted to disprove this fearmongering with facts. A study had also been published in 1885 by Henry Hyndman, leader of the Social Democratic Federation, that claimed that around 25 percent of London’s population was living in poverty. Booth thought that he “had grossly overstated the case” and set out to conduct his own research.
Using information provided by the School Board visitors—who kept tabs on children’s school attendance—Booth created a color-coded map of London that visually showed poverty levels throughout the city. His map revealed that the problem was actually more severe than previously reported, with nearly one-third of Londoners living in poverty.
Booth continued to research poverty, examining how it intersected with religion, education, and politics. He published his findings and maps in a series of books, Life and Labour of the People in London, which concluded in 1903. He also pushed for social reform via government policies and became a leading figure in the implementation of pensions and free school meals.
Robert Peary’s Map of Peary Channel
Virtually no map is perfect, but the mistakes made on American explorer Robert Peary’s map of northern Greenland proved to be deadly [PDF]. Peary created the map in the early 1890s, believing that the northeast section of Greenland was actually an island separated by a length of water, which he dubbed “Peary Channel.” If correct, it meant that the island belonged to the United States rather than Denmark.
In 1906, the Denmark Expedition set off to verify or refute Peary’s map. The inhospitable environment led to the deaths of three men. Hoping that the maps and notes from the excursion were safely stored in cairns, another party—comprised of just two men, Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen—set off to recover the materials. The documents revealed that Peary Channel didn’t exist. Mikkelsen and Iversen ended up in dire straits themselves. By the time they were rescued in 1912, members of the first Thule expedition had independently verified that the area was in fact a peninsula.
Halford Mackinder’s “The Natural Seats of Power”
Although politics had skewed maps in the past, the map in Halford Mackinder’s 1904 article “The Geographical Pivot of History” took ideas of geopolitics further than ever before. Mackinder used a simple sketched map—titled “The Natural Seats of Power” and drawn by Bernard Vernon Darbishire—to illustrate his idea that whoever controlled central Asia and Russia would have the power to control the entire world. Mackinder’s map prompted conversations about how geography could shape politics and was even adapted in 1935 by Nazi Karl Haushofer in his theories about spreading Germany’s power.
The Gall-Peters Projection
There have been numerous attempts to solve the distortion issues of the Mercator map, with the most well-known alternative being the Gall-Peters Projection. This map uses a cylindrical projection with the latitude parallels at a 45 degree angle, which results in countries being the correct size in relation to each other. However, in preserving the accuracy of area, the outlines of landmasses are misshapen, becoming inaccurately stretched vertically.
The projection was first introduced in 1855 by Scottish cartographer James Gall, but it didn’t make much of an impact [PDF]. Then in 1973, German historian Arno Peters independently came up with the mathematical formula and introduced the same projection to wider attention. Despite being adopted by UNESCO, UNICEF, and some schools for a time, the map received backlash for simply swapping one form of distortion for another.
Google Maps
Google Maps was a game-changer when it was launched in 2005. Now, the digital map is used by around 1 billion people each month, attesting to just how big of a fixture it’s become in modern life.
In 2012, Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering at Google Maps, described the project as “the never-ending quest for the perfect map.” The map is constantly being updated to account for new roads and buildings, as well as changing natural features. Google Maps uses satellite and aerial images, along with pictures from cameras mounted on cars—and sometimes even sheep!—to document the ever-changing world. Users are offered various different map views, from a top-down satellite perspective to 360° Street View.
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