But I do hope this will be a good place to start. Cosmas Indicopleustes's model of the world, from Christian Topography. Gerard van Schagen's map of the world, drawn in 1689. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details may not fully reflect the modified file.I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses:The following pages on the English Wikipedia use this file (pages on other projects are not listed):(SVG file, nominally 1,390 × 1,295 pixels, file size: 487 KB)Commons is a freely licensed media file repository. Hecataeus of Miletus' map of the world, made in the 5th or 6th century BC. Slowly, world maps started fleshing out the east to include China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. Italian geographer Pietro Vesconte's world map, drawn in 1321 AD. With strategic planning, powerful leaders, and an abundance of natural resources, Ghana soon became another big African influence. This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it. The first of these ancient world maps was reportedly made in Babylon more than 2,500 years ago. Their world was the land that surrounded and fed them, and as far as they knew, it extended no further.Eventually, the earliest human civilizations tried to measure the extent of the world and made maps that showed what, to them, was the whole world.The first of these ancient world maps was reportedly made in Babylon more than 2,500 years ago. The Kangnido World Map, created by Korean officials in 1402 AD. The Anglo-Saxon Cotton Map, created between 1025 and 1050 AD. It shows a world that extends little past their own empire, surrounded by bitter waters and pointed islands on which they believed no man could survive.Those waters surrounded most of the extant ancient world maps. A later Christian map, the Bunting Clover Leaf Map, drawn by Heinrich Bunting in Germany in 1581. The center of the Tabula Peutingeriana, a 4th century Roman map outlining the road network of the Roman Empire. Diachronic map showing pre-colonial cultures of Africa (spanning roughly 500 BCE to 1500 CE) The Americas were slowly charted, Australia and New Zealand began to appear, and explorers slowly revealed the world in its full scope.29 Ancient Maps That Show How Our Ancestors Saw The World29 Ancient Maps That Show How Our Ancestors Saw The WorldMark Oliver is a writer, teacher, and father whose work has appeared on The Onion's StarWipe, Yahoo, and Cracked, and can be found on his Pages From One Of The First Books Ever Printed In England Found In An Old Box'Baby Louie,' The Mysterious Dinosaur Without A Species, Finally Finds Its FamilyWhat Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The MostThe oldest known world map was made in Babylon in the 6th century BC. Posidonius' world map, made in the 2nd century BC. The original map came from Image:Africa map political-fr.svg, by Eric Gaba. When people ask about “ancient African empires,” though, they are usually thinking of empires in the region of Africa south of the Sahara Desert. The Hereford Mappa Mundi, drawn by Richard of Haldingham in the 14th century. The Psalter World Map, drawn by an unknown medieval monk in 1260 AD. The earliest known world maps date to classical antiquity, the oldest examples of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE still based on the flat Earth paradigm. Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilizations of the ancient world, and of the three, it was the most widespread, covering an area of 1.25 million kilometers. ABOVE: Map from Wikimedia Commons of the Roman Empire at its greatest territorial extent in 117 AD.
By now, much of the world had been mapped, with only small parts of the Americas left ambiguously blank.Samuel Dunn's map of the world, drawn in 1794 AD. The world, to them, was a round disc surrounded by an ocean, and a place consisting only of Africa, Europe, and Asia.As time passed, maps slowly grew larger as humans' knowledge of what lay outside of the Mediterranean grew. Great ancient African civilizations, in their day, were just as splendid and glorious as any on the face of the earth. A lot of the civilizations on this page do not have the times they existed. If this could be added it would be very beneficial. I do not pretend to list all the resources to be found, they are many and always changing. Cosmas Indicopleustes' world map, from the 6th century, depicting the world as a flat rectangle.A fanciful rendition of the "T and O" map developed by Isidor of Sevilla in the 7th century. image/svg+xml GREAT ZIMBABWE EMPIRE EMPIRE OF KANEM MALI EMPIRE WOLOF BENIN HAUSA PERSIAN ACHAEMENID EMPIRE BACHWEZI EMPIRE EMPIRE OF GHANA Jenne-jeno Timbuktu NOK CULTURE Kumbi Saleh CHRISTIAN ETHIOPIA Kangaba KINGDOM OF KANGABA SONGHAI EMPIRE IGBO YORUBA Ife FATIMID CALIPHATE AYYUBID DYNASTY KINGDOM OF AKSUM Aksum KONGO … Mahmud al-Kashgari's map of the world, drawn in the 11th century. The world according to Beatus of Libeana, and Asturian monk, created in the 8th century AD.