Cartography

Cartography is the study and practice of making and using maps, combining science, aesthetics, and technique to model reality or imagined reality for effective spatial communication. Its fundamental objectives include setting a map’s agenda and selecting traits—whether physical features like roads or land masses, or abstract ones such as toponyms or political boundaries—through map editing. Terrain is represented on flat media via map projections, while irrelevant characteristics are eliminated and complexity reduced through generalization. Finally, map design orchestrates elements to best convey a message to its audience.

Ancient times

Modern cartography provides many theoretical and practical foundations for geographic information systems and geographic information science. The history of cartography stretches back to prehistory, with debated early examples including a wall painting possibly depicting the ancient Anatolian city of Çatalhöyük from the late 7th millennium BCE, and alpine rock carvings from the 4th millennium BCE showing geometric patterns interpreted as cultivated plots. Ancient maps include the Minoan “House of the Admiral” wall painting and an engraved map of Nippur from the Kassite period. The oldest surviving world maps are from 9th century BCE Babylonia, showing Babylon surrounded by a “bitter river.” The Greeks and Romans created maps from the 6th century BCE, and Ptolemy’s 2nd century CE treatise Geographia contained a world map of the known Ecumene.

Arab scholars translated Greek works from the 8th century, and Roman itinerarium maps portrayed the world via roads. In ancient China, geographical literature dates to the 5th century BCE, with the oldest extant maps from the 4th century BCE Qin state. A star map on an equidistant cylindrical projection appeared in a 1092 Chinese publication.

Medieval European mappae mundi survive in about 1,100 examples. The Arab geographer al-Idrisi produced the Tabula Rogeriana in 1154, combining classical and contemporary knowledge, remaining the most accurate world map for three centuries. During the Age of Discovery, European cartographers used explorers’ observations and new tools like the magnetic compass, telescope, and sextant. The oldest extant globe was made in 1492, and a globular world map was produced in 1507.