Early world maps Facts for Kids

The earliest known world maps are from the 6th to 5th centuries BC. They show the world in a different and very simple shape. The developments of Greek geography during this time, notably by Eratosthenes and Posidonius led to Ptolemy's world map (2nd century AD). This was authoritative throughout the Middle Ages.

Since Ptolemy, cartographers got better knowledge of the size of the globe. With the Age of Discovery, the 15th to 18th centuries, world maps became increasingly accurate. Exploration of Antarctica, Australia, and the inside of Africa by western mapmakers was done in the 19th and early 20th century.

old maps

Babylonian Map of the World (flat-earth diagram on a clay tablet, c. 600 BC)
Tabula Rogeriana (1154)
Psalter world map (1260)
Tabula Peutingeriana (1265, medieval map of the Roman Empire, believed to be based on 4th century source material)
Hereford Mappa Mundi (c. 1285; the largest medieval map known still to exist)
Map of Maximus Planudes (c. 1300), earliest extant realization of Ptolemy's world map (2nd century)
Gangnido (Korea, 1402)
Bianco world map (1436)
Fra Mauro map (c. 1450)
Map of Bartolomeo Pareto (1455)
Genoese map (1457)
Map of Juan de la Cosa (1500)
Cantino planisphere (1502)
Piri Reis map (1513)
Dieppe maps (c. 1540s-1560s)
Mercator 1569 world map
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Ortelius, Netherlands, 1570–1612)
Kunyu Wanguo Quantu (1602)

Images for kids

Imago Mundi Babylonian map, the oldest known world map, 6th century BCE Babylonia. Now in the British Museum.
1883 reconstruction of Eratosthenes' map
A 1628 reconstruction of Posidonius ideas about the positions of continents (many details couldn't have been known by Posidonius)
An 1898 reconstruction of Pomponius Mela's view of the World.
The oldest surviving Ptolemaic world map, redrawn according to his 1st projection by monks at Constantinople under Maximus Planudes around 1300
Nicolaus Germanus's 1467 Latin world map according to Ptolemy's 2nd projection, the first known to the west
World map by Cosmas Indicopleustes
T and O map from a 12th-century copy of Etymologiae
Albi Mappa Mundi
World map by Ibn Hawqal (south at top)
The Anglo-Saxon 'Cotton' world map (c. 1040). Britain and Ireland are bottom left.
World map from the Saint-Sever Beatus
al-Kashgari's Diwanu Lughat at-Turk.
Original Tabula Rogeriana (1154) with south up.
The Ebstorf Map, c. 1235.
The Hereford Mappa Mundi, c. 1300
Pietro Vesconte's world map, 1321
Two leaves of The Catalan world atlas
Da Ming Hunyi Tu map
Ryūkoku copy of the Gangnido world map (c. 1479–1485)
De Virga world map (1411–1415)
Bianco world map (1436)
Borgia map (early 15th century)
Genoese map of 1457, Biblioteca Nazionale at Florence
Fra Mauro map (1459)
Martellus world map (1490)
Behaim's Erdapfel
Modern recreation of the gores of the Erdapfel
Map of Juan de la Cosa, shown rotated right (in the original manuscript north points left), 1500
Cantino planisphere, 1502, Biblioteca Estense, Modena
Caverio Map (c. 1505), Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
Ruysch's 1507 map of the world
Waldseemüller map with joint sheets, 1507
Fragment of the Piri Reis map by Piri Reis in 1513
Map of Pietro Coppo, Venice, 1520
World Map by Diogo Ribeiro, "Propaganda map" (1529), Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
Mercator Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio, 1569. High res image.
Ortelius's map Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570)
Die ganze Welt in einem Kleberblat (The entire World in a Cloverleaf). Jerusalem is in the centre of the map surrounded by the three continents.
Kunyu Wanguo Quantu (1602), Japanese copy
Hendrik Hondius, Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica ac Hydrographica Tabula, 1630
Nicolaes Visscher, Orbis Terrarum Nova et Accuratissima Tabula, 1658
Van Schagen's map of the world, 1689
World map by Samuel Dunn, 1794

Early world maps facts for kids

old maps

Images for kids

See also