Great Maps

258 Pages·2014·99.53 MB·English

by  JERRY BROTTON

GREATMAPS

GREATMAPS
JERRY BROTTON
LONDON, NEW YORK, MUNICH,
MELBOURNE, DELHI
Editorial Team Catherine Saunders, Hugo Wilkinson
US Editors Margaret Parrish, Jane Perlmutter
Senior Art Editor Gillian Andrews Contents
Senior Designer Stephen Bere
Producer, Pre-Production Lucy Sims
Senior Producer Mandy Inness
Picture Research Sarah Smithies, Roland Smithies
Jacket Designer Laura Brim
Jacket Editor Maud Whatley
Managing Editor Stephanie Farrow
Senior Managing Art Editor Lee Griffiths Preface 6
Catalan Atlas 62
Publisher Andrew Macintyre
Art Director Phil Ormerod Introduction 8 Abraham Cresques
Publishing Director Jonathan Metcalf
Bedolina Petroglyph 20 Kangnido Map 66
DK INDIA Unknown Kwŏn Kŭn
Editor Esha Banerjee Babylonian World Map 22 Portolan Chart 68
Art Editor Pooja Pipil Unknown Zuane Pizzigano
Assistant Art Editor Tanvi Sahu
DTP Designers Shankar Prasad, Vijay Kandwal Ptolemy’s World Map 24 Fra Mauro’s World Map 72
Managing Editor Kingshuk Ghoshal Claudius Ptolemy Fra Mauro
Managing Art Editor Govind Mittal
Peutinger Map 28 Juan de la Cosa’s World Chart 76
Pre-production Manager Balwant Singh
Production Manager Pankaj Sharma Unknown Juan de la Cosa
SMITHSONIAN ENTERPRISES
Product Development Coordinator Kealy Wilson CLASSICAL MAPS DISCOVERY AND TRAVEL
Licensing Manager Ellen Nanney
Vice President, Education and Brigid Ferraro 1500 bce–1300 ce 1300–1570
Consumer Products
Senior Vice President, Education Carol LeBlanc
and Consumer Products
First American Edition, 2014 Madaba Mosaic Map 32 Map of Venice 80
Unknown Jacopo de’ Barbari
Published in the United States by
Dunhuang Star Chart 36 Map of Imola 84
DK Publishing, 4th floor, 345 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014 Li Chunfeng Leonardo da Vinci
The Book of Curiosities 40 First Map of America 86
14 15 16 17 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Unknown Martin Waldseemüller
001–272280–August/2014
Map of the Tracks of Yu 44 Piri Re’is Map 90
Copyright © 2014 Dorling Kindersley Limited
Unknown Piri Re’is
All rights reserved
Entertainment for He Who Longs to 46 Map of Utopia 94
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or Travel the World Ambrosius Holbein
introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or Al-SharĪf al-IdrĪsĪ
Map of Au urg 96
by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
Sawley Map 50 Jörg Seld
or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the
copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Unknown Universal Chart 100
Published in Great Britain by Carte Pisane 52 Diogo Ribeiro
Dorling Kindersley Limited. Unknown
Aztec Map of Tenochtitlan 104
A catalog record for this book is Hereford Mappa Mundi 56 Unknown
available from the Library of Congress Richard of Haldingham
New France 106
ISBN 978–1–4654–2463–1 Giacomo Gastaldi
A New and Enlarged Description 110
DK books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk
for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. of the Earth
For details, contact: DK Publishing Special Markets, 345 Hudson Gerard Mercator
Street, New York, New York 10014 or [email protected].
Printed and bound in Hong Kong
Discover more at www.dk.com

Established in 1846, the Smithsonian—the world’s largest museum and research complex—includes 19 museums and galleries
and the National Zoological Park. The total number of artifacts, works of art, and specimens in the Smithsonian’s collections
AUTHOR’S NOTE is estimated at 137 million, much of which is contained in the National Museum of Natural History, which holds more than
This book is dedicated to my father, 126 million specimens and objects. The Smithsonian is a renowned research center, dedicated to public education, national service,
Alan Brotton and scholarship in the arts, sciences, and history.
Jain Cosmological Map 168
Map of Northumbria 116 Unknown
Christopher Saxton International Map of 212
A Map of the British Colonies 172
the World
Vatican Gallery of Maps 118 in North America
Albrecht Penck
Egnazio Danti John Mitchell
London Underground Map 216
The Molucca Islands 122 Indian World Map 176
Harry Beck
Petrus Plancius Unknown
Dymaxion Map 220
Map of the Ten Thousand 126 Map of All Under Heaven 180
Buckminster Fuller
Countries of the Earth Unknown
Matteo Ricci, Li Zhizao, Lunar Landings Map 224
A Delineation of the Strata 184
and Zhang Wentao NASA
of England and Wales with
The Selden Map 130 Part of Scotland Equal Area World Map 226
Unknown William Smith Arno Peters
NEW DIRECTIONS THEMATIC MAPS MODERN MAPPING
AND BELIEFS
1570–1750 1750–1900 1900 TO PRESENT
Nautical Chart 134 Japan, Hokkaido to Kyushu 188 World Ocean Floor 230
Zheng He Inō Tadataka Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen
Map of the “Inhabited Quarter” 138 “Indian Territory” Map 190 Mappa 232
Sadiq Isfahani Henry Schenck Tanner Alighiero Boetti
New Map of the World 142 John Snow’s Cholera Map 192 Cartogram 236
Joan Blaeu John Snow Worldmapper
Britannia Atlas Road Map 146 Slave Population of the 194 Nova Utopia 240
John Ogilby Southern States of the US Stephen Walter
Edwin Hergesheimer
Map of New England 150 Google Earth 244
John Foster Dr. Livingstone’s Map of Africa 198 Google
David Livingstone
Corrected Map of France 154
Jean Picard and Philippe de La Hire Missionary Map 202 INDEX 248
Unknown
Map of the Holy Land 156
Abraham Bar-Jacob Descriptive Map of London 204 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 255

Poverty, 1898–9
Land Passage to California 160
Charles Booth
Eusebio Francisco Kino
Marshall Islands Stick Chart 208
New Map of France 162
Unknown
César-François Cassini de Thury

7
Preface
Today, maps are regarded primarily as locational or navigational tools.
Made of paper or, more likely, accessed digitally, they provide information
about our surroundings or guide us from one place to another with maximum
speed and efficiency. However, throughout history, maps have served a
variety of purposes. In fact, ever since mankind first learned how to make
graphic marks on rock up to 40,000 years ago, people have created maps as
a way of conceptualizing themselves in relation to their environment. Thus,
maps are as much about existence as they are about orientation. Processing
our surroundings spatially is a basic human activity that psychologists
call “cognitive mapping.” While other animals demarcate their territories,
we are the only species capable of mapping ours.
MAKING SENSE OF THE WORLD
So, what is a map? The word “map” was first used in English in the
16th century and, despite more than 300 subsequent, competing
interpretations of the term, most scholars now broadly agree that a map can
be defined as “a graphic representation that presents a spatial understanding
of things, concepts, or events in the human world.” Although this definition
might seem vague, it frees maps from the constraints of being considered
merely scientific tools, and allows an extraordinary array of renditions to
coexist under the title of “maps”—celestial, astrological, topographical,
theological, spiritual, statistical, political, navigational, imaginative, and
artistic. Such a broad definition also embraces the sheer variety of different
cultural traditions, including what, how, and why different communities have
made and do make maps, from the Greek pinax and the Latin mappa, to the
Chinese tu and the Arabic șūrah. Many of these different traditions are
described in the following pages, which start with a map carved in stone more
than 3,500 years ago, and then explore examples made using clay, mosaic,
papyrus, animal skin, paper, and electronic media.
Great Maps features a diverse selection of maps made during key moments
in world history, and explains how they provide important answers to the
most urgent questions of their eras. This book presents mapmaking as a truly
global phenomenon—it is an activity common to every race, culture, and
creed, although each one has very a distinctive way of mapping its particular
world. The book also reveals that, despite the claims of many mapmakers
throughout history, there is no such thing as a perfect map. Maps are always
subjective, and there are invariably many different ways of mapping the
same area. Great Maps is broken down into five chronological chapters, but
this does not mean that the history of maps is one that becomes gradually
more scientifically accurate and “correct” as we approach the modern age.
Instead, each section explains how maps answer the specific needs of their
intended audience, so that a 13th-century religious map that puts Jerusalem
at its center is as “true” to its original audience as the digital maps many
of us regularly consult on our cell phones today.