The Brief History of Maps
The Babylonian Map of the World
Maps have always been in our lives, either through GPS direction, or the paper-printed version found at convenience stores, they give a clear picture of the world around us, proving direction and showing location. Today, we take for granted how important those two pieces of information are, as it shows the idea of the whole world, with man in the center.
Starting off, maps were more of an “artistic expression, or a way of declaring one’s fiefdom. Centuries later, the Romans drew an extensive map of their empire on a long scroll, but since the map was barely a foot high and dozens of feet wide, it couldn’t be realistic”. The oldest surviving map dates back to 700–500 BC in Mesopotamia, as a simple representation of nearby regions. The map depicts Babylon, surrounded by the Euphrates River and the nearby ocean. Carved on a clay tablet, the map was about the size of an iPhone.
The first actual attempt of a map came from the second century AD by Claudius Ptolemy. He gathered information about the location of towns, and with the stories from travelers, he devised “a system of lines of latitude and longitude, and plotted some 10,000 locations — from Britain to Europe, Asia and North Africa”. Unfortunately, Ptolemy’s geography was lost after the Roman Empire fell. It wasn’t until the famous Islamic scholar al-Sharif al-Idrisi blended his knowledge of Islamic cities with King Roger II of Sicily and his knowledge of Christian cities, to form the famous 12th-century world-centering map.
With the help of other people like Herodotus, Anaximander, and Eratosthenes, maps started developing toward western earth sciences. Ptolemy, and others “performed deep studies of the sizes and shapes of the earth and its habitable areas, climatic zones and country positions”. Anaximander was the first to draw a map of the known world, while Pythagoras of Samos first speculated about the notion of a spherical earth with a burning core. The theory of Earth’s beginning spread among the geographers of the Greek era, leading to a huge spread of cartographic science. Eratosthenes, during the 3rd century BC, contributed greatly to the history of geographic knowledge.
As maps became prominently used as a reference of the world in relation to the viewer, other factors also influenced the development. Over time, maps shifted toward a focus on more practical uses like the military and administrative needs, moving away from the previous display of information about new western earth science discoveries. Certain financial, economic, political, and military aspects also changed the use and format of maps, where maps became more or less restricted to a bounded area.
The Impacts of the Printing Press and Colonialization
It wasn’t until the 16th century and the discovery of the printing press, was there a drastic change in map making. With the new demand for land, “The commercial expansion, the colonization of new parts of the world, and the search for military superiority over other countries, brought the realization of the need of accurate maps to control as much as the world as possible, putting great emphasis on the cartography of the coastal areas and the new inland regions discovered during these times”. The Mercator Projection was created, being the first attempt to make the round earth look flat on a flat surface. The Mercator projection, “allowed for straight lines, called loxodromes, making it much easier for ships’ navigators to use to chart a course,” despite the trade-off of distortion that came with this type of projection.
To learn more about the different types of map’s and projections, click on “The Wide Range Of World Maps”
The Industrial Revolution
After the Industrial Revolution, trading and commerce increased enormously throughout the world, as well as led to the rise of a middle class that had the opportunity to afford luxuries such as books and travel. Traveling became a great pleasure for both families and businesses, allowing them to expand on a new global scale. Because of the new demand in traveling, geographers and cartographers had to respond to the increasing demand of the middle class, eventually leading to the rise of more factual maps compared to the previously decorated maps.
During the 19th Century, railroads also played a major role in map development. Railroads made traveling faster, cheaper and more accessible to more and more people, further increasing the demand of cartographers to produce up-to-date maps with the latest extensions of the railroad network.
Today, technological advancements have led to new and improved adaptations never imagined before. As society advances, “The new generations of mapmakers and map users are well instructed in the use of computers and of the peripheral instruments like plotters, printers, scanners, along with image processing, spatial analysis and database software.” As technology advances so fast, hopefully, there will be the start of a new era in the art and science of map making.
