History of the World Map is a fascinating and intricate story that spans multiple centuries and cultures. Throughout the centuries, maps have been created in order to chart new land, document the earth’s changing climate and trace the journeys of historical figures. Today, the maps of the world we use to form our view of the world have drastically changed since the earliest maps were made thousands of years ago.
The earliest known world maps were created by the Babylonians and Sumerians in Mesopotamia in the 6th century BC. These maps depicted the Mesopotamian world, with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers clearly delineating the distinct landmasses.
The first known maps of the world began appearing over 6,000 years ago. The earliest surviving map, which dates back to around 2300 BCE, is the Babylonian Imago Mend, which shows a worldview of ancient Mesopotamia with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers intertwining. At this point in history, this map’s function was more religious than practical, as it served more to convey the relationship between humanity and the gods.
Maps continued to grow in sophistication with the emergence of the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks drew upon the Egyptians’ understanding of geography to create the first known non-religious map of the world in the form of the 4th-century Funds. This map of the world, depicting the known world (centered on the Mediterranean Sea) as an island surrounded by ocean, was mostly conceptual in nature, as it entirely lacked geographical accuracy.
Over the following centuries, maps of the world continued to become more realistic as explorers pushed out the boundaries of the known world. During the Age of Exploration, when mariners charted much of the earth’s oceans, legendary maps began to make their appearance in the form of Andrea Alberto 14th-century Portland chart which showed the Mediterranean Sea in detail and the Greco-Roman scholar Ptolemy 15th-century chart of the known world’s longitude and latitude.
The most detailed and accurate maps of the world changed the course of history during the 17th and 18th centuries with the emergence of the modern map. Starting in 1669 when Dutch cartographer Joan Black designed the first map of the world from satellite data and other sources, maps of the world became increasingly modern and accurate. The most advanced maps of the world at the time, when the technology to measure latitude and longitude became more precise, were created by the German cartographer Gerhard Mercator, who designed the 1569 world map using methods of projection to accurately map out the landmasses of the world.
The world map we use is determined by the use of the globally accepted WGS 84 (World Geodetic System of 1984) and the Peters Projection Map. Based on these two worldwide standards, governments, businesses, and others make precise maps of the world in order to build a common understanding of our world.
Today, maps of the world continue to be modified and adapted to reflect the latest scientific breakthroughs and newly explored parts of our planet. Such advances have made it possible to create highly detailed and accurate maps of our world. As technology and exploration advance, the map of the world is constantly updated, allowing us to gain a better understanding of our planet and its many diverse regions.
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