The History Of Maps

The map has no single origin or known inventor. But these breakthrough maps illuminate the milestones of science and discovery that guided civilisations – and define how we view the world today.

- Meghan Neal

BABYLONIAN MAP OF THE WORLD

THE OLDEST SURVIVING WORLD MAP

The oldest surviving world map depicts the world view of Babylonians circa 600 BCE. The five-inch stone tablet is centred around Babylon, the wide rectangle, which straddles the Euphrates River, depicted by the crooked lines running from top to bottom. Babylon, likely the world’s most populous city at the time, is surrounded by neighbouring cities represented by small circles, all within a greater circle to denote the ocean. Though its geography is limited, this map reveals the inherent bias of mapmakers to place themselves at the literal centre of the world.

Other early maps served more practical needs, such as the stick and shell charts built to denote currents around islands in the South Pacific more than 2 000 years ago, or the Egyptian papyrus maps that led miners through the desert in the 12th century BCE. But the Babylonian Map of the World is the earliest example of a political map used to champion a country or city.

PTOLEMY’S GEOGRAPHIA

THE FIRST WORLD ATLAS

The Greeks were the first known culture to apply a scientific approach to measuring and mapping the world. The philosopher Pythagoras theorised as early as the 6th century BCE that the Earth was round. And by 200 BCE, the scholar Eratosthenes compared the angles of shadows cast simultaneously in two distant cities to accurately estimate the planet’s circumference within 1 600 km.