He was the first to draw up a geographical map of the earth. The history of the creation of world maps. Anaximander was ahead of his time

First cards

Geographic maps have a long history.

Once upon a time, travelers setting out on a long journey had neither maps nor navigation devices - nothing that would allow them to determine their location. I had to rely on my memory, the Sun, the Moon and the stars. People made sketches of the places they visited - this is how the first maps appeared.

Since ancient times, maps have been one of the most important documents for any state. The rulers of many countries organized expeditions to explore unknown lands and the main goal of all travelers was, first of all, to draw up detailed geographical maps with the most important landmarks marked on them: rivers, mountains, villages and cities.

The modern name "Card" comes from the Latin "charte", meaning "letter". Translated, “chartes” means “sheet or roll of papyrus for writing.”

It is difficult to determine when the first cartographic images appeared. Among the archaeological finds on all continents one can see primitive drawings of the area made on stones, bone plates, birch bark, wood, the age of which scientists estimate is approximately 15 thousand years.

The simplest cartographic drawings were already known in primitive society, even before the birth of writing (appendix). This is evidenced by primitive cartographic images among peoples who, at the time of their discovery or study, stood at low levels of social development and did not have a written language (Eskimos of North America, Nanai of the Lower Amur, Chukchi and Oduli of Northeast Asia, Micronesians of Oceania, etc. ).

These drawings, executed on wood, bark, etc. and often distinguished by great plausibility, they served to satisfy the needs that arose from the conditions of the general labor of people: to indicate the routes of migrations, hunting places, etc.

Cartographic images carved on rocks in the era of primitive society have been preserved. Particularly remarkable are the Bronze Age rock paintings in the Camonica Valley (northern Italy), including a plan showing cultivated fields, paths, streams and irrigation canals. This plan is one of the oldest cadastral plans.

Before their appearance, the main source of information about the location of a particular object was oral stories. But as people began to travel frequently over ever greater distances, the need for long-term storage of information arose.

The oldest surviving cartographic images include, for example, a city plan on the wall of Çatalhöyük (Turkey), dating back to approximately 6200 BC. BC, a map-like image on a silver vase from Maykop (about 3000 BC), cartographic images on clay tablets from Mesopotamia (about 2300 BC), numerous petroglyph maps of Valcamonica in Italy (1900 –1200 BC), Egyptian map of gold mines (1400 BC), etc. From Babylon, through the Greeks, the Western world inherited the sexagesimal number system, based on the number 60, in which geographic coordinates are expressed today.

Early cartographers themselves collected descriptions of various parts of the world known at that time, interviewing sailors, soldiers and adventurers and displaying the received data on a single map, and filled in the missing places with their imagination or honestly left unpainted blank spots.

The first maps contained a huge number of inaccuracies: at first no one thought about the rigor of measurements, scales, or topographical signs. But even such cards were highly valued. With their help, it was possible to repeat the path taken by the discoverer and avoid the troubles that abounded in wait for travelers.

Since the 6th century. BC e., the main contributions to the technology of creating maps in the Ancient world were made by the Greeks, Romans and Chinese.

Unfortunately, no Greek maps of that time have survived, and the contribution of the Greeks to the development of cartography can only be assessed from textual sources - the works of Homer, Herodotus, Aristotle, Strabo and other ancient Greeks - and subsequent cartographic reconstructions.

Greek contributions to cartography included the use of geometry to create maps, the development of map projections, and the measurement of the Earth.

It is believed that the creator of the first geographical map is the ancient Greek scientist Anaximander. In the VI century. BC. he drew the first map of the then known world, depicting the Earth as a flat circle surrounded by water.

The ancient Greeks were well aware of the spherical shape of the Earth, as they observed its rounded shadow during periods of lunar eclipses and saw ships appear over the horizon and disappear beyond it.

The Greek astronomer Eratosthenes (c. 276–194 BC) back in the 3rd century BC. e. quite accurately calculated the size of the globe. Eratosthenes wrote the book Geography, using the terms “geography”, “latitude” and “longitude” for the first time. The book consisted of three parts. The first part outlined the history of geography; the second describes the shape and size of the Earth, the boundaries of land and oceans, the climates of the Earth; in the third, the land is divided into parts of the world and sphrageds - prototypes of natural zones, and a description of individual countries is also made. He also compiled a geographical map of the populated part of the Earth.

As noted above, Eratosthenes proved the sphericity of the Earth and measured the radius of the globe, and Hipparchus (about 190–125 BC) invented and used a system of meridians and parallels for cartographic projections.

In the Roman Empire, cartography was put at the service of practice. Road maps were created for military, trade and administrative needs. The most famous of them is the so-called Peitinger table (a copy of a map of the 4th century), which is a scroll of 11 glued sheets of parchment 6 m 75 cm long and 34 cm wide. It shows the road network of the Roman Empire from the British Isles to the mouth of the Ganges, amounting to about 104,000 km, with rivers, mountains, settlements.

The crowning achievement of the cartographic works of Roman times was the eight-volume work “Guide to Geography” by Claudius Ptolemy (90–168), where he summarized and systematized the knowledge of ancient scientists about the Earth and the Universe; indicating the coordinates of many geographical points in latitude and longitude; which outlines the basic principles of creating maps and provides the geographical coordinates of 8000 points. And, which during the 14th centuries enjoyed such great popularity among scientists, travelers, and merchants that it was reprinted 42 times.

Ptolemy’s “Geography” contained, as already mentioned, all the information about the Earth available at that time. The maps included with it were very accurate. They have a degree grid.

Ptolemy compiled a detailed map of the Earth, the like of which no one had ever created before. It depicted three parts of the world: Europe, Asia and Libya (as Africa was then called), the Atlantic (Western) Ocean, the Mediterranean (African) and Indian Seas.

The rivers, lakes and peninsulas of Europe and North Africa known at that time were depicted quite accurately, which cannot be said about the lesser-known areas of Asia, which were reconstructed based on fragmentary, often contradictory, geographical information and data.

8000 (eight thousand) points of the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean were plotted by coordinates; the position of some of them was determined astronomically, and most were plotted along routes.

The map is extended in an easterly direction. Half of the map is devoted to famous countries. In its southern part there is a huge continent called the Unknown Land.

Cartography developed in China independently of European traditions. The oldest surviving document on the official surveying of the country and the creation of maps dates back to the Zhou Dynasty (1027–221 BC). And the oldest surviving Chinese maps are considered to be maps on bamboo plates, silk and paper, discovered in Fanmatan tombs from the Qin (221–207 BC) and Western Han (206 BC – 25 years) times. . AD) dynasties, as well as in the Mawangdui graves of the Western Han dynasty.

These maps are comparable in image quality and detail to topographic maps. They were significantly more accurate than even later European maps.

The main Chinese contribution to the creation of maps was the invention no later than the 2nd century. BC e. paper on which maps began to be drawn, and the rectangular grid of coordinates first used by the great Chinese astronomer and mathematician Zhang Heng (78–139 AD). Subsequently, Chinese cartographers invariably used a rectangular coordinate grid.

A century later, the Chinese cartographer Pei Xiu (224–271) developed principles for drawing maps based on the use of a rectangular grid, as well as principles for measuring distances based on the laws of geometry.

Invented by the Chinese in the 8th century. printing allowed them to be the first in world history to begin printing maps. The first surviving printed Chinese map dates back to 1155.

Medieval Maps

In the early Middle Ages, cartography fell into decline.

After the collapse in the 4th century. During the Roman Empire, the scientific and cartographic achievements of Ancient Greece and Rome were forgotten in Europe for several centuries. Up to the 10th century. Some revival in the creation of maps was observed only in monasteries, where, to illustrate theological works, small-sized schematic maps of the world were placed - mappae mundi, depicting the Earth as a circle divided into five thermal zones.

The question of the shape of the Earth ceased to be important for the philosophy of that time, many again began to consider the Earth to be flat. The so-called T and O maps became widespread, on which the surface of the Earth was depicted as consisting of a disk-shaped land surrounded by an ocean (letter O).

The land was depicted as divided into three parts: Europe, Asia and Africa. Europe was separated from Africa by the Mediterranean Sea (the lower part of the T), Africa from Asia by the Nile River (the right part of the T crossbar), and Europe from Asia by the Don River (Tanais) (the left part of the T crossbar).

Cartographers of that time, hiding their geographic ignorance, filled the map with a variety of artistic drawings: deserts and forests were “populated” with wild animals, inhabited places were filled with figures of people, seas were decorated with drawings of ships and sea animals.

Against the background of the decline of geography and cartography in Europe during the early Middle Ages, Arab cartography successfully developed (in general, Greek culture reached the Europeans mainly thanks to the Arabs). The Arabs improved Ptolemy's methods of determining latitude; they learned to use observations of stars instead of the Sun. This increased accuracy. Here in Baghdad, in the 9th century. Ptolemy's Geography was translated into Aramaic and then into Arabic.

The flourishing of Arab cartography is associated with the name of the Arab geographer and cartographer Idrisi (1100–c. 1165), who created a map of the part of the world known at that time on a silver plate measuring 3.5 x 1.5 m, as well as on 70 sheets of paper. An interesting feature of the Idrisi map, as well as other maps compiled by the Arabs, is that the south was depicted at the top of the map.

The spread of the compass in the Mediterranean from the 10th to 11th centuries and the needs of merchant shipping caused the appearance here at the end of the 13th century. the first navigation charts - portolan charts, or compass charts. Catalonia is considered their homeland. The portolan maps depicted the coastline of the Mediterranean and Black Seas in detail, many geographical names were indicated, and compass grids were plotted at a number of points, indicating the position of the cardinal points and intermediate directions.

In addition, some of them depicted the Atlantic coast from Denmark to Morocco and the British Isles. In the second half of the 15th century. Numerous images of compass roses began to be placed on portolan maps. The oldest surviving portolan map is the Pisa map, dating from around the end of the 13th century.

Some revolution in European cartography was caused by the introduction into use of the magnetic compass at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries. A new type of map has appeared - detailed compass maps of the portolan (portolan) coastlines. A detailed image of the coastline on portolans was often combined with the simplest division into cardinal points of T and O maps. The first portolan that has come down to us dates back to 1296. Portolans served purely practical purposes, and as such cared little about taking into account the shape of the Earth.

In the middle of the 14th century, the era of great geographical discoveries began.

Because of this, interest in cartography intensified. Important achievements of cartography of the pre-Columbian period are the Fra Mauro map (1459, this map, in a sense, adhered to the concept of a flat Earth) and the "Earth Apple" - the first globe compiled by the German geographer Martin Beheim.

After the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, new advances were made in cartography - a whole new continent appeared to be explored and depicted. The outlines of the American continent became clear by the 1530s.

The invention of printing helped greatly in the development of cartography.

The next revolution in cartography was the creation of the first atlases of the globe by Gerhardt Mercator and Abraham Ortelius. At the same time, Mercator had to create cartography as a science: he developed the theory of map projections and a notation system. And the name “atlas” was introduced for a collection of maps by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator, who published “Atlas” in I595.

Ortelius's atlas, entitled Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, was printed in 1570; Mercator's atlas was not fully printed until after his death. All navigators of the 16th and early 17th centuries. used this atlas, which consisted of 70 (seventy) large format maps, accompanied by explanatory text.

Each map of his atlas is carefully engraved on copper and provided with a degree grid. On the map of the hemispheres, the continents of the Old and New Worlds were depicted in all details, but their outlines did not yet correspond to reality. One of the maps is dedicated to the Southern Continent (Magelania), which extended from the South Pole to 40-50° S, crossed the Tropic of Capricorn twice and was separated from South America by the Strait of Magellan. Tierra del Fuego and New Guinea were depicted as its peninsulas.

Increasing the accuracy of maps is facilitated by more accurate methods of determining latitudes and longitudes, the discovery of triangulation by Snell in 1615 and the improvement of instruments - geodetic, astronomical and clocks (chronometers). Although some fairly successful attempts to compile large maps (of Germany, Switzerland, etc.) were made at the end of the 14th and 17th centuries, it was only in the 18th century. we see great success in this regard, as well as a significant expansion of more accurate cartographic information in relation to the East. and Sev. Asia, Australia, North. America, etc.

An important technical achievement of the 18th century was the development of methods for measuring heights above sea level and ways of depicting heights on maps. Thus, it became possible to take topographic maps. The first topographic maps were taken in the 18th century in France.

The first map of Russia, called the “Big Drawing,” was compiled, as scientists suggest, in the second half of the 16th century. However, neither the “Big Drawing” nor its subsequent supplemented and modified copies have reached us. Only the appendix to the map has survived - “The Book of the Big Drawing.” It contained interesting information about the nature and economic activities of the population, about the main roads and main rivers as routes of communication, about “cities” and various defensive structures on the borders of the Russian state.

Thus, the geographical map is the greatest creation of mankind. It serves as a wonderful means of understanding and transforming the world around us. Engineers and researchers, geologists and agronomists, scientists and military personnel turn to it, and everyone finds the necessary answers to their questions.

When working with a map, it is possible to simultaneously view a significant surface area or the entire surface of the Earth.

Only a map allows you to see and study the relative positions of continents and city blocks, transport flows between countries and bird flight routes.

Using a map, you can draw conclusions about many processes and patterns of our planet. On some maps you can see the ocean floor, the structure of the earth's crust, ice sheets of the past, and even a glimpse into the future.

Primitive drawings of the area found by archaeologists on stones, birch bark, wood and even on a piece of mammoth tusk, which are about 15 thousand years old, indicate that the origins of the map go back to the distant past.

So, a map is not just the most important source of geographical knowledge, but a special means of information; it cannot be replaced by either text or the living word.

The oldest maps found date back to those times when humanity did not even have an idea of writing. If you think about it, there is an explanation for this - navigating the terrain was much more important to the ancients than keeping chronicles and writing something down.

And it all started with images of the starry sky on the walls of caves. It was in this amazing way that ancient people marked their location more than 18,000 years ago. This knowledge is still used today when leaving unfamiliar places and looking at star constellations.

Only thousands of years later did the first images of the area appear on stones, wood and animal skins, which could be carried with you or passed on to others. But such maps usually covered a relatively small area: usually within 100 square kilometers.

The first attempts to create a map of the entire world appeared approximately 5-3 millennia BC. But they were rarely distinguished by any accuracy, since they did not take into account the fact that the Earth is round.

Who is considered to be the founder of cartography?

Iconic and familiar even to schoolchildren meridians and parallels appeared only in the third century BC. They were created and put on maps by the famous Greek scientist Eratosthenes. He is considered to be the “father” of modern cartography. Although many historians do not agree with this fact and consider a certain Anaximander and even Pythagoras to be such.

The work of Eratosthenes was continued and improved in the second century in Alexandria by the equally famous Ptolemy. It was he who came up with the idea of dividing meridians and parallels into degrees. His maps were unparalleled for 12 centuries.

But the atlases we are familiar with appeared only at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. This was facilitated by the development of the aeroindustry, photography and the determination of the prime meridian.

Some interesting facts about geographical maps

The history of the emergence and development of cartography throughout the world was not uniform:

The oldest map found in China was drawn on silk and created to mark the path for an assassin.
In ancient times, most people could easily draw a diagram of the surrounding area.
Most Tuareg tribes create relief maps from wet sand.
Some Aboriginal tribes in Australia carve a map of their lands onto wooden weapons as a totem.
The sea guides of ancient Polynesia were a complex weave of threads, mollusk shells, twigs and even stones. At the same time, they displayed all cardinal directions, the smallest atolls, and even the direction of currents.

This is only a tiny part of the unusual facts from the history of the appearance of geographical atlases. But even from this it is clear that the author of the very first map will never be found.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF UKRAINE

NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

"KHARKIV POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE"

DEPARTMENT OF "INFORMATION SYSTEMS"

Essay

on the topic: “History of the creation of geographical maps”

in the course "Cartography"

Completed:

1st year student Afonina Ekaterina Viktorovna group VK -345 _______ Delivery date_________________________

Checked:_________________________________

Valdai – 3

INTRODUCTION

Cartography is the science of displaying and understanding natural and socio-economic geosystems through maps as models. Cartography also exists as a field of technique and technology for the creation and use of cartographic works and as a branch of production that produces cartographic products (maps, atlases, globes, etc.). The development of computerization has expanded the understanding of cartography; its interests also include technologies for creating electronic maps, databases and banks of digital cartographic information.

Cartography originated in ancient times; there are even references to maps in the Bible. The first manuals on cartography were compiled in ancient Greek. scientist K. Ptolemy. Ancient cartographers created geographic maps that took into account the sphericity of the Earth and were equipped with a degree grid. Cartography flourished during the Renaissance and the Great Geographical Discoveries. The authors of the famous world maps and the first atlases were the Dutch cartographers G. Mercator and A. Ortelius. In Russia, the development of cartography is associated with the names of S. U. Remezov, V. N. Tatishchev, F. F. Schubert, A. I. Mende, I. A. Strelbitsky, A. A. Ilyin, A. A. Tillo. In the 19th century active differentiation of the Earth sciences contributed to the development of thematic cartography. A significant contribution to domestic science was made by the works of F. N. Krasovsky, V. V. Kavraisky, N. A. Urmaev, G. A. Ginzburg on mathematical cartography, K. A. Salishchev, A. V. Gedymin, A. F. Aslanikashvili, A. A. Lyuty on cartography, cartographic semiotics and general theory of cartography, and Yu. M. Shokalsky on marine cartography, N. N. Baransky and A. I. Preobrazhensky on economic-geographical mapping, M. I. Nikishova on agricultural cartography, I. P. Zarutskaya on thematic cartography, A. M. Berlyant on the theory and cartographic method of research, L. A. Goldenberg, A. V. Postnikov on the history of cartography, etc.

Part of the Roman road map (4th century). The map, which is a scroll, shows the roads of the Roman Empire from Britain to India

There are several concepts that interpret the subject and method of cartography differently. The model-cognitive concept considers it as the science of understanding reality through cartographic modeling, and the map itself as a model of reality. According to the communication concept, cartography is considered the science of transmitting spatial information, and the map is a channel of information, a means of communication. The concept of map semiotics considers cartography as the science of the language of the map, and the map itself as a special text composed using conventional signs (written in the language of the map). In the 1980s An integral geoinformation concept began to take shape, according to which cartography is considered as the science of information-cartographic modeling and knowledge of geosystems, closely connecting it with geoinformatics, earth sciences and society.

Map of Transylvania from the “Atlas” of G. Mercator - J. Hondius (1607)

Modern cartography is an extensive system of scientific disciplines and technical branches. The general theory of cartography examines the subject and method of cartography, issues of methodology for creating and using maps. Basic theoretical developments are carried out within the framework of cartology - the general study of maps. The history of cartography studies the history of ideas, concepts, methods of science, the development of cartographic production, as well as old cartographic works. Mathematical cartography is a discipline within which cartographic projections are developed; This branch of cartography, such as the design and compilation of maps, studies and develops methods and technologies for the desk production and editing of maps of general geographic, nature, socio-economic, environmental, etc. Cartographic semiotics is a discipline that deals with systems of cartographic signs and the rules for their use. Map design (cartographic design) studies the theory and methods of artistic design of cartographic works, their line and colorful design, including using computer graphics. Map publishing is a technical branch that deals with the preparation of maps and atlases for publication, their reproduction and printing. The use of maps develops the theory and methods of using cartographic works (maps, atlases, globes, etc.) in practical, scientific, cultural, and educational activities. Cartographic source studies develop methods for evaluating and systematizing cartographic sources, and cartographic toponymy studies geographical names and their semantic meaning from the point of view of correct representation on maps. The objectives of this discipline include the normalization and standardization of names and terms shown on maps.

Fragment of a hypsometric map of European Russia compiled by A. A. Tillo in 1889.

In cartography, many thematic branches have developed, such as general geographic, geological, soil, ethnographic mapping, etc. According to the method, they belong to cartography, and according to the subject - to specific sciences (geology, soil science, ethnography). With the advent of new branches of knowledge, new sections of thematic cartography arise - for example, geoecological, geopolitical, and electoral mapping have appeared relatively recently. By purpose and practical orientation, such industries as educational, scientific, tourism, navigation (marine, aeronautical), engineering mapping, etc. are quite clearly distinguished.

In domestic cartography, two directions (scientific schools) have emerged: geographical and engineering cartography. The geographical direction is primarily concerned with the display and study of geosystems and their components. In this case, priority is given to interaction with geosciences and socio-economic disciplines. The School of Engineering Cartography emphasizes technical aspects and connections to the geodetic sciences. Both schools closely cooperate in the cartographic and geodetic study of the country, in the creation of large works - maps and atlases.

Cartography has bilateral contacts with many philosophical, natural and technical sciences, mathematics, geodesy and especially remote sensing. It takes advantage of their achievements, ideas and technologies, while at the same time providing them with a field for the development of their theory and methodology. Since ancient times, there have been strong contacts between cartography and art. Drawing and engraving maps have always been akin to art, and the graphics and colors on maps have been influenced by different artistic styles. The design solutions of modern cards are also influenced by trends in artistic design and computer graphics.

Modern cartography interacts most fruitfully with geoinformatics and computer modeling. Based on the integration of the two sciences, a promising direction has been formed - geoinformation mapping. At the intersection with telecommunications, Internet mapping has developed, i.e., the creation and placement of maps and atlases on the worldwide electronic network.

Complex scientific reference atlases are considered the most significant achievements in cartography. The Great Soviet Atlas of the World in 2 volumes is world famous. (1937–1940), Marine atlas in 3 vols. (1950–1953), Physiographic Atlas of the World (1964), Atlas of the Peoples of the World (1964), Atlas of the Antarctic (1966), Atlas of the Oceans in 5 vols. (1977–95), Atlas of the World (1st ed. 1954, 2nd – 1967, 3rd – 1999), Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources of the World (1997), Atlas “Nature and Resources of the Earth” in 2 vols. (1999). The whole territory The country is covered with topographic maps at scales of 1:25,000 and 1:100,000 - these are the largest single blocks of maps of this scale in the world. Important achievements in the field of thematic mapping are a series of nature maps of the USSR at scales of 1:1,000,000 and 1:2,500,000, maps for higher schools (1st series - 1950–59, 2nd series started in 1974. ), Ecological and geographical map of the Russian Federation on a scale of 1:4,000,000 (1996), etc.

HISTORY OF CARTOGRAPHY DEVELOPMENT

The creator of the first geographical map is considered to be the ancient Greek scientist Anaximander. In the VI century. BC. he drew the first map of the then known world, depicting the Earth as a flat circle surrounded by water.

In the 3rd century. BC. The ancient Greek scientist Eratosthenes wrote the book "Geography", using the terms "geography", "latitude" and "longitude" for the first time. The book consisted of three parts. The first part outlined the history of geography; the second describes the shape and size of the Earth, the boundaries of land and oceans, the climates of the Earth; in the third, the land is divided into parts of the world and sphrageds - prototypes of natural zones, and a description of individual countries is also made. He also compiled a geographical map of the populated part of the Earth.

In the II century. AD The ancient Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy summarized and systematized the knowledge of ancient scientists about the Earth and the Universe in his eight-volume work “Guide to Geography,” which during the 14th centuries enjoyed such great popularity among scientists, travelers, and merchants that it was reprinted 42 times.

Ptolemy's "Geography" contained, as already mentioned, all the information about the Earth available at that time. The maps included with it were very accurate. They have a degree grid. Ptolemy compiled a detailed map of the Earth, the like of which no one had ever created before. It depicted three parts of the world: Europe, Asia and Libya (as Africa was then called), the Atlantic (Western) Ocean, the Mediterranean (African) and Indian Seas. The rivers, lakes and peninsulas of Europe and North Africa known at that time were depicted quite accurately, which cannot be said about the lesser-known areas of Asia, which were reconstructed based on fragmentary, often contradictory, geographical information and data. 8000 (eight thousand) points from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean were plotted according to coordinates; the position of some of them was determined astronomically, and most were plotted along routes. The map is extended in an easterly direction. Half of the map is devoted to famous countries. In its southern part there is a huge continent called the Unknown Land.

The first map of Russia, called the “Big Drawing,” was compiled, as scientists suggest, in the second half of the 16th century. However, neither the “Big Drawing” nor its subsequent supplemented and modified copies have reached us. Only the appendix to the map has survived - “The Book of the Large Drawing”. It contained interesting information about the nature and economic activities of the population, the main roads and main rivers as routes of communication, about “cities” and various defensive structures on the borders of the Russian state.

The first globe was created by the German scientist Martin Beheim. His model of the Earth was published in I492, the year when Christopher Columbus set off to the shores of fabulous India by the western route. The globe depicted Europe, Asia, Africa, which occupy about half of the entire surface of the Earth, and no North and South America, Antarctica, or Australia. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans are presented as a single water basin, and in place of the Indian Ocean are the East Indian Ocean and the Stormy South Sea, separated by a vast archilag of islands. The outlines of the oceans and continents are far from reality, since the creation of the globe was based on information based on the ideas of ancient geographers and data from Arab and other travelers who visited the countries of the East, India and China.

It is impossible to determine when a person made the first map. It is only known that many millennia BC, man already knew the area around him well and knew how to depict it on sand or tree bark. These cartographic images served to indicate migration routes, hunting places, etc.

Many more hundreds of years passed. People, in addition to hunting and fishing, began to engage in cattle breeding and agriculture. This new, higher level of culture was reflected in the drawings and plans. They become more detailed, more expressive, and more accurately convey the character of the area.

A very valuable ancient drawing of a hunting ground in the North Caucasus has survived to this day. This engraving was made on silver around 3 thousand years BC. e., i.e. This cultural monument of the inhabitants of the ancient Caucasus was found by scientists during excavations of one of the mounds on the bank of the river. Kuban near the city of Maykop.

In the ancient world, the compilation of geographical maps reached great development. The Greeks established the sphericity of the Earth and its dimensions, introduced cartographic projections, meridians and parallels into science.

One of the most famous scientists of the ancient world, geographer and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, who lived in Alexandria (at the mouth of the Nile River) in the 2nd century, compiled a detailed map of the Earth, which no one had ever created before.

This map depicts three parts of the world - Europe, Asia and Libya (as Africa was then called), as well as the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean and other seas. The map already has a degree grid. Ptolemy introduced this grid to more correctly depict the spherical shape of the Earth on the map. The rivers, lakes, peninsulas of Europe and North Africa known at that time are shown quite accurately on Ptolemy’s map.

If you compare Ptolemy’s map with a modern one, it is easy to notice that areas located far from the Mediterranean Sea region, that is, known to Ptolemy only by rumor, received fantastic outlines.

What is especially striking is that Asia is not depicted in its entirety. Ptolemy did not know where it ended in the north and east. He also did not know about the existence of the Arctic and Pacific oceans. Africa continues on the map to the South Pole and turns into some kind of land connecting to Asia in the east. Ptolemy did not know that Africa ends in the south and is washed by the ocean. He also did not know about the existence of independent continents - America, Antarctica and Australia. Ptolemy depicted the Indian Ocean as a closed sea, into which it was impossible to sail on ships from Europe. And yet, in the ancient world and in subsequent centuries, until the 15th century, no one made a better map of the world than Ptolemy.

The Romans widely used maps for administrative and military purposes; they compiled road maps.

During the Middle Ages, the achievements of ancient science were forgotten for a long time. The Church entered into a fierce struggle with scientific ideas about the structure and origin of the world.

In schools, fables were taught about the creation of the world by God in six days, about the global flood, about heaven and hell. The idea that the Earth was spherical was considered “heretical” by churchmen and was strictly persecuted. The idea of the Earth took on a completely fantastic form. In the VI century. The Byzantine merchant - monk Cosmas Indicoplov depicted the Earth in the shape of a rectangle.

The main type of maps is becoming rough, far from reality and lacking a scientific basis, “monastery maps”. They indicate the decline of cartography in medieval Europe. During this period, many small closed states arose in Europe. With a subsistence economy, these feudal states did not need connections with the outside world.

By the end of the Middle Ages, trade and navigation began to develop in European cities, and art and science began to flourish.

In the XIII-XIV centuries. In Europe, a compass and marine navigation charts, the so-called portolans, appeared.

These maps depicted the coastline in detail and very accurately, while the interior parts of the continents remained empty or were filled with pictures from the life of the peoples inhabiting them.

The era of great geographical discoveries created the conditions for the rise of cartographic science: sailors needed a good, truthful geographical map. In the 16th century more correct maps appeared, built in new cartographic projections.
Geographic maps include a lot of scientific material. If you compare different maps of the same area and study them, you can get a very detailed picture of that area.

Therefore, geographical maps are a huge source of knowledge. But a map can become a real source of knowledge only when you have a certain amount of geographical knowledge.

Anyone with knowledge of geography and the ability to read a map can accurately understand the terrain depicted on it, rivers, mountain lakes, high or low hills, cities and villages, railways.