



HISTORY MAP ARCHIVE



Browse the Map Archive

The art and history of cartography, aka mapmaking, goes back to ancient times.



The oldest maps found so far date from about 2300 BC and were created by the Babylonians, who drew their maps on clay tablets. The Egyptians, too, were busy mapmakers. All these maps were focused on specific areas of the world. It took the philosophizing Greeks to get us maps of the entire world, maps of the earth and the globe.



Or at least what they thought it could look like.



Our English word map derives from the Latin word mappa, meaning napkin or cloth on which maps were drawn.







The Map Archive

This map collection is indexed chronologically and by continent.







Some Map History and Trivia

This little gem is a world map compiled around 700 to 500 BC by the ancient Babylonians:



Babylonian World Map

British Museum London



See more details about this ancient map provided by the British Museum .

And here is Herodotus ' Map of the World.



MAP OF THE WORLD — HERODOTUS

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Comparing drawings from several lunar eclipses, Aristotle observed that Earth cast always a circular shadow on the moon, no matter the moon's trajectory. Thus he figured that Earth had to be a sphere.

By 150 BC, the philosopher Crates had fashioned a globe, and others followed. The oldest globe in the world is in a German museum:



Martin Behaim's 1492 Globe is the Oldest One in Existence

More from the Germanisches Nationalmuseum

Photo Alexander Franke / Wiki

By the way, is Russia in Europe or in Asia? Here is your answer.



MAP OF EUROPEAN RUSSIA

Source Unknown