Tag Info

The convention was established by Ptolemy (AD 90 – c. AD 168) in his main work, Geography. The following is a 15th century reconstruction of Ptolemy's world map: It's an arbitrary decision, and several reversed maps exist. There are also maps that don't follow a standard orientation, some examples are T and O maps, polar maps, and Dymaxion/Fuller maps. ...

Your question assumes that some kind of a formal decision was made and that most countries explicitly agree that there is an official demarcation. As this boundary is mostly cartographical, no country has ever, to the best of my knowledge, made an issue out of this location. It's been the practice to just use whatever demarcation that other cartographers ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cartography has a very good description. Ptolemy suggested mapping a spherical earth with lines of longitude/latitude but didn't do very much field work. There are Arabic maps from C9-C10 which used astronomical observations to get their important cities in the right place. The maps from 1500 are essentially ...

The first thing I can think of is Portolan charts, the Wikipedia page is not very clear but it links here which has some more information. (full frameset for the second link)

"Europe" can mean different things depending on context. To geologists, there is no such thing as a distinct European land-mass since it is inseparable from Asia (hence Eurasia). Politically, Europe might mean the member states of the EU or the EEC. In sporting terms, Israel and Kazakhstan are in Europe. According to Turkey, country is entirely in Europe, ...

There were a couple of islands in Laptev sea. Semenovsky and Vasilievsky. They are present, for example, in wikimapia (the mark is in russian, it says melted Semenovsky island). Wikipedia states: Storms and currents due to the ice thawing significantly erode the islands, so the Semenovsky and Vasilievsky islands (74°12"N, 133°E) which were ...

This may not count as "modern", but its a good story along the vein you are looking for ... In July of 1610 Galileo was still making discoveries faster than he could publish descriptions of them. On the 25th he discovered that Saturn was apparently situated between two smaller companions that always moved together. Wanting to establish his priority ...

That appears to be the survey of LA drawn out by Lieutenant Edward Ord in 1849. If so, then the Fort Street in the grid-like area in the upper left area of the map later became Broadway street. Hill Street, the next over from Fort Street on the survey, is still the next street NW from Broadway today. As for where on Broadway that is, I'd say its almost ...

A modern example is New Moore/South Talpatti island on the border of India and Bangladesh. Google Maps shows it but Bing Maps does not. It seems to have been a sandbar which appeared in the 1970s but was washed away at a later date. The surprising thing is that although it has been subject to a major boundary dispute and although the surrounding ...

Comets are probably the most-modern equivalent to Phantom Islands of old - given that astronomical instruments are 'only so good' at keeping track of them (and similarly-orbiting space rocks) There is also a pseudo-'phenomenon' of online map errors, which could be seen similarly to phantom maps of old. Think of this especially in light of how map providers ...

The main significant contribution to map making before satellites were triangulation. The first world maps that I would call reasonably accurate turn up at the beginning of the 19th century, like this one. Even then you have small problems (compare the shape of Norway, for example) but there are no huge mistakes that jump out at you immediately. At the end ...

According to Wikipedia, this division was first put forward in the 18th century by Philip Johan von Strahlenberg. It's best if I just quote the passage in full: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasia#History_of_the_Europe_and_Asia_division In ancient times, the Greeks classified Europe (derived from the mythological Phoenician princess Europa) and Asia ...

Just from researching the subject on Internet it is easy to see that the subject is very much charged with nationalist and politic agendas. Also if some detailed maps existed, exactly for the reign of Dahir they could not be undisputed, since there are obviously no scientific measures at that dates, also most of the historic references of Dahir are related ...

As the Wikipedia article itself says, King Dahir was the ruler of the Sindh, and some areas of Punjab, the territories that now lie in Pakistan.His capital was at Alor, which is now in Sind province of Pakistan. There are no maps showing the kingdom's borders, since they are not completely known till now.