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When was the first geographical map created? On the topic: “The history of the creation of geographical maps

First cards

Geographic maps have a long history.

Once upon a time, travelers going to long journey, had no maps, no navigation instruments - nothing that would allow them to determine their location. I had to rely on my memory, the Sun, the Moon and the stars. People made sketches of the places they visited - this is how the first maps appeared.

Since ancient times, maps have been one of the most important documents for any state. The rulers of many countries organized expeditions to explore unknown lands and the main goal of all travelers was, first of all, to compile detailed geographical maps with the most important landmarks marked on them: rivers, mountains, villages and cities.

The modern name "Card" comes from the Latin "charte", meaning "letter". Translated, “chartes” means “sheet or roll of papyrus for writing.”

It is difficult to determine when the first appeared cartographic images. Among the archaeological finds on all continents one can see primitive drawings of the area made on stones, bone plates, birch bark, wood, the age of which scientists estimate is approximately 15 thousand years.

The simplest cartographic drawings were already known in the conditions primitive society, even before the birth of writing (application). This is evidenced by primitive cartographic images of peoples who, at the time of their discovery or study, were at low levels of social development and did not have a written language (Eskimos of North America, Nanai of the Lower Amur, Chukchi and Oduli of Northeast Asia, Micronesians of Oceania, etc. ).

These drawings, executed on wood, bark, etc. and often distinguished by great plausibility, they served to satisfy the needs that arose from the conditions of the general labor of people: to indicate the routes of migrations, hunting places, etc.

Cartographic images carved on rocks in the era of primitive society have been preserved. Particularly remarkable are the Bronze Age rock paintings in the Camonica Valley (northern Italy), including a plan showing cultivated fields, paths, streams and irrigation canals. This plan is one of the oldest cadastral plans.

Before their appearance, the main source of information about the location of a particular object was oral stories. But as people began to travel frequently over ever greater distances, the need for long-term storage of information arose.

The oldest surviving cartographic images include, for example, a city plan on the wall of Çatalhöyük (Turkey), dating back to approximately 6200 BC. BC, a map-like image on a silver vase from Maykop (about 3000 BC), cartographic images on clay tablets from Mesopotamia (about 2300 BC), numerous petroglyph maps of Valcamonica in Italy (1900 –1200 BC), Egyptian map of gold mines (1400 BC), etc. From Babylon, through the Greeks, the Western world inherited the sexagesimal number system, based on the number 60, in which geographic coordinates are expressed today.

Early cartographers themselves collected descriptions of various parts of the world known at that time, interviewing sailors, soldiers and adventurers and displaying the received data on a single map, and filled in the missing places with their imagination or honestly left unpainted blank spots.

The first maps contained a huge number of inaccuracies: at first no one even thought about the rigor of measurements, scales, topographic signs. But even such cards were highly valued. With their help, it was possible to repeat the path taken by the discoverer and avoid the troubles that abounded in wait for travelers.

Since the 6th century. BC e., the main contribution to the technology of creating maps in Ancient world contributed by the Greeks, Romans and Chinese.

Unfortunately, no Greek maps of that time have survived, and the contribution of the Greeks to the development of cartography can only be assessed from textual sources - the works of Homer, Herodotus, Aristotle, Strabo and other ancient Greeks - and subsequent cartographic reconstructions.

The Greek contribution to cartography was the use of geometry to create maps, the development map projections and in the Earth dimension.

It is believed that the creator of the first geographical map is the ancient Greek scientist Anaximander. In the VI century. BC he drew the first map of the then known world, depicting the Earth as a flat circle surrounded by water.

The ancient Greeks were well aware of the spherical shape of the Earth, as they observed its rounded shadow during periods of lunar eclipses and saw ships appear over the horizon and disappear beyond it.

The Greek astronomer Eratosthenes (c. 276–194 BC) back in the 3rd century BC. e. quite accurately calculated the size of the globe. Eratosthenes wrote the book Geography, using the terms “geography”, “latitude” and “longitude” for the first time. The book consisted of three parts. The first part outlined the history of geography; the second describes the shape and size of the Earth, the boundaries of land and oceans, the climates of the Earth; in the third, the land is divided into parts of the world and sphrageds - prototypes of natural zones, and a description of individual countries is also made. He also compiled a geographical map of the populated part of the Earth.

As noted above, Eratosthenes proved the sphericity of the Earth and measured the radius of the globe, and Hipparchus (about 190–125 BC) invented and used a system of meridians and parallels for cartographic projections.

In the Roman Empire, cartography was put at the service of practice. For military, trade and administrative needs, they were created road maps. The most famous of them is the so-called Peitinger table (a copy of a map of the 4th century), which is a scroll of 11 glued sheets of parchment 6 m 75 cm long and 34 cm wide. It shows the road network of the Roman Empire from the British Isles to the mouth of the Ganges, amounting to about 104,000 km, with rivers, mountains, settlements.

The crowning achievement of the cartographic works of Roman times was the eight-volume work “Guide to Geography” by Claudius Ptolemy (90–168), where he summarized and systematized the knowledge of ancient scientists about the Earth and the Universe; indicating the coordinates of many geographical points in latitude and longitude; which outlines the basic principles of creating maps and provides the geographical coordinates of 8000 points. And, which during the 14th centuries enjoyed such great popularity among scientists, travelers, and merchants that it was reprinted 42 times.

Ptolemy’s “Geography” contained, as already mentioned, all the information about the Earth available at that time. The maps included with it were very accurate. They have a degree grid.

Ptolemy composed detailed map A land the like of which no one had ever created before. It depicted three parts of the world: Europe, Asia and Libya (as Africa was then called), the Atlantic (Western) Ocean, the Mediterranean (African) and Indian Seas.

The rivers, lakes and peninsulas of Europe and North Africa known at that time were depicted quite accurately, which cannot be said about the lesser-known areas of Asia, which were reconstructed based on fragmentary, often contradictory, geographical information and data.

8000 (eight thousand) points of the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean were plotted by coordinates; the position of some of them was determined astronomically, and most were plotted along routes.

The map is extended in an easterly direction. Half of the map is devoted to famous countries. In its southern part there is a huge continent called the Unknown Land.

Cartography developed in China independently of European traditions. The oldest surviving document on the official surveying of the country and the creation of maps dates back to the Zhou Dynasty (1027–221 BC). And the oldest surviving Chinese maps are considered to be maps on bamboo plates, silk and paper, discovered in Fanmatan tombs from the Qin (221–207 BC) and Western Han (206 BC – 25 years) times. . BC) dynasties, as well as in the Mawangdui graves of the Western Han dynasty.

These maps are comparable in image quality and detail to topographic maps. They were significantly more accurate than even later European maps.

The main Chinese contribution to the creation of maps was the invention no later than the 2nd century. BC e. paper on which maps began to be drawn, and the rectangular grid of coordinates first used by the great Chinese astronomer and mathematician Zhang Heng (78–139 AD). Subsequently, Chinese cartographers invariably used a rectangular coordinate grid.

A century later, the Chinese cartographer Pei Xiu (224–271) developed principles for drawing maps based on the use of a rectangular grid, as well as principles for measuring distances based on the laws of geometry.

Invented by the Chinese in the 8th century. printing allowed them to be the first in world history to begin printing maps. The first surviving printed Chinese map dates back to 1155.

Medieval Maps

In the early Middle Ages, cartography fell into decline.

After the collapse in the 4th century. During the Roman Empire, the scientific and cartographic achievements of Ancient Greece and Rome were forgotten in Europe for several centuries. Up to the 10th century. Some revival in the creation of maps was observed only in monasteries, where, to illustrate theological works, small-sized schematic maps of the world were placed - mappae mundi, depicting the Earth as a circle divided into five thermal zones.

The question of the shape of the Earth ceased to be important for the philosophy of that time, many again began to consider the Earth to be flat. The so-called T and O maps became widespread, on which the surface of the Earth was depicted as consisting of a disk-shaped land surrounded by an ocean (letter O).

The land was depicted as divided into three parts: Europe, Asia and Africa. Europe was separated from Africa by the Mediterranean Sea (the lower part of the T), Africa from Asia by the Nile River (the right part of the T crossbar), and Europe from Asia by the Don River (Tanais) (the left part of the T crossbar).

Cartographers of that time, hiding their geographic ignorance, filled the map with a variety of artistic drawings: deserts and forests were “populated” with wild animals, inhabited places were filled with figures of people, seas were decorated with drawings of ships and sea animals.

Against the background of the decline of geography and cartography in Europe during the early Middle Ages, Arab cartography successfully developed (in general, Greek culture reached the Europeans mainly thanks to the Arabs). The Arabs improved Ptolemy's methods of determining latitude; they learned to use observations of stars instead of the Sun. This increased accuracy. Here in Baghdad, in the 9th century. Ptolemy's Geography was translated into Aramaic and then into Arabic.

The flourishing of Arab cartography is associated with the name of the Arab geographer and cartographer Idrisi (1100–c. 1165), who created a map of the part of the world known at that time on a silver plate measuring 3.5 x 1.5 m, as well as on 70 sheets of paper. An interesting feature of the Idrisi map, as well as other maps compiled by the Arabs, is that the south was depicted at the top of the map.

The spread of the compass in the Mediterranean from the 10th to 11th centuries and the needs of merchant shipping caused the appearance here at the end of the 13th century. the first navigation charts - portolan charts, or compass charts. Catalonia is considered their homeland. The portolan maps depicted the coastline of the Mediterranean and Black Seas in detail, many geographical names were indicated, and compass grids were plotted at a number of points, indicating the position of the cardinal points and intermediate directions.

In addition, some of them depicted the Atlantic coast from Denmark to Morocco and the British Isles. In the second half of the 15th century. Numerous images of compass roses began to be placed on portolan maps. The oldest surviving portolan map is the Pisa map, dating from around the end of the 13th century.

Some revolution in European cartography was caused by the introduction into use of the magnetic compass at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries. Appeared new type maps - detailed compass maps of the portolana (portolan) coastlines. A detailed image of the coastline on portolans was often combined with the simplest division into cardinal points of T and O maps. The first portolan that has come down to us dates back to 1296. Portolans served purely practical purposes, and as such cared little about taking into account the shape of the Earth.

In the middle of the 14th century, the era of the Great began geographical discoveries.

Because of this, interest in cartography intensified. Important achievements of cartography of the pre-Columbian period are Fra Mauro's map (1459, this map, in a sense, adhered to the concept of a flat Earth) and the "Earth Apple" - the first globe compiled by the German geographer Martin Beheim.

After the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, new advances were made in cartography - a whole new continent appeared to be explored and depicted. The outlines of the American continent became clear by the 1530s.

The invention of printing helped greatly in the development of cartography.

The next revolution in cartography was the creation of the first atlases of the globe by Gerhardt Mercator and Abraham Ortelius. At the same time, Mercator had to create cartography as a science: he developed the theory of map projections and a notation system. And the name “atlas” was introduced for a collection of maps by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator, who published “Atlas” in I595.

Ortelius's atlas, entitled Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, was printed in 1570; Mercator's atlas was not fully printed until after his death. All navigators of the 16th and early 17th centuries. used this atlas, which consisted of 70 (seventy) large format maps, accompanied by explanatory text.

Each map of his atlas is carefully engraved on copper and provided with a degree grid. On the map of the hemispheres, the continents of the Old and New Worlds were depicted in all details, but their outlines did not yet correspond to reality. One of the maps is dedicated to the Southern Continent (Magelania), which extended from the South Pole to 40-50° S, crossed the Tropic of Capricorn twice and was separated from South America by the Strait of Magellan. Tierra del Fuego and New Guinea were depicted as its peninsulas.

Increasing the accuracy of maps is facilitated by more accurate methods of determining latitudes and longitudes, the discovery of triangulation by Snell in 1615 and the improvement of instruments - geodetic, astronomical and clocks (chronometers). Although some fairly successful attempts at compiling large maps(Germany, Switzerland, etc.) were made at the end of the 14th and in XVII centuries, however, only in the 18th century. we see great success in this regard, as well as a significant expansion of more accurate cartographic information in relation to the East. and Sev. Asia, Australia, North. America, etc.

An important technical achievement of the 18th century was the development of methods for measuring heights above sea level and ways of depicting heights on maps. Thus, it became possible to make topographic maps. The first topographic maps were taken in the 18th century in France.

The first map of Russia, called the “Big Drawing,” was compiled, as scientists suggest, in the second half of the 16th century. However, neither the “Big Drawing” nor its subsequent supplemented and modified copies have reached us. Only the appendix to the map has survived - “The Book of the Big Drawing.” It contained interesting information about the nature and economic activities of the population, about the main roads and main rivers as routes of communication, about “cities” and various defensive structures on the borders of the Russian state.

Thus, the geographical map is the greatest creation of mankind. It serves as a wonderful means of understanding and transforming the world around us. Engineers and researchers, geologists and agronomists, scientists and military personnel turn to it, and everyone finds the necessary answers to their questions.

When working with a map, it is possible to simultaneously view a significant surface area or the entire surface of the Earth.

Only a map allows you to see and study the relative positions of continents and city blocks, transport flows between countries and bird flight routes.

Using a map, you can draw conclusions about many processes and patterns of our planet. On some maps you can see the ocean floor, the structure of the earth's crust, ice sheets of the past, and even a glimpse into the future.

Primitive drawings of the area found by archaeologists on stones, birch bark, wood and even on a piece of mammoth tusk, which are about 15 thousand years old, indicate that the origins of the map go back to the distant past.

So, a map is not just the most important source of geographical knowledge, but a special means of information; it cannot be replaced by either text or the living word.

The map is more important than the text, as it often speaks much more clearly, Semenov-Tien-Shansky

First cards

Geographic maps have a long history.

Once upon a time, travelers setting out on a long journey had neither maps nor navigation devices - nothing that would allow them to determine their location. I had to rely on my memory, the Sun, the Moon and the stars. People made sketches of the places they visited - this is how the first maps appeared.

Since ancient times, maps have been one of the most important documents for any state. The rulers of many countries organized expeditions to explore unknown lands, and the main goal of all travelers was, first of all, to compile detailed geographical maps with the most important landmarks marked on them: rivers, mountains, villages and cities.

The modern name "CARD" comes from the Latin "charte", meaning "letter". Translated, “chartes” means “sheet or roll of papyrus for writing.”

It is difficult to determine when the first cartographic images appeared. Among the archaeological finds on all continents one can see primitive drawings of the area made on stones, bone plates, birch bark, wood, the age of which scientists estimate is approximately 15 thousand years.

The simplest cartographic drawings were already known in primitive society, even before the birth of writing (appendix). This is evidenced by primitive cartographic images of peoples who, at the time of their discovery or study, were at low levels of social development and did not have a written language (Eskimos of North America, Nanai of the Lower Amur, Chukchi and Oduli of Northeast Asia, Micronesians of Oceania, etc. ).

The oldest surviving cartographic images include, for example, a city plan on the wall of Çatalhöyük (Turkey), dating back to approximately 6200 BC. BC, a map-like image on a silver vase from Maykop (about 3000 BC), cartographic images on clay tablets from Mesopotamia (about 2300 BC), numerous petroglyph maps of Valcamonica in Italy (1900 -1200 BC), Egyptian map of gold mines (1400 BC), etc. From Babylon, through the Greeks, the Western world inherited the sexagesimal number system, based on the number 60, in which geographic coordinates are expressed today.

The first maps contained a huge number of inaccuracies: at first no one thought about the rigor of measurements, scales, or topographical signs. But even such cards were highly valued. With their help, it was possible to repeat the path taken by the discoverer and avoid the troubles that abounded in wait for travelers.

Since the 6th century. BC BC, the main contributions to the technology of creating maps in the Ancient World were made by the Greeks, Romans and Chinese.

Unfortunately, no Greek maps of that time have survived, and the Greek contribution to the development of cartography can only be assessed from textual sources - the works of Homer, Herodotus, Aristotle, Strabo and other ancient Greeks - and subsequent cartographic reconstructions.

Greek contributions to cartography included the use of geometry to create maps, the development of map projections, and the measurement of the Earth.

The Greek astronomer Eratosthenes (about 276-194 BC) back in the 3rd century BC. e. quite accurately calculated the size of the globe. Eratosthenes wrote the book Geography, using the terms “geography”, “latitude” and “longitude” for the first time. The book consisted of three parts. The first part outlined the history of geography; the second describes the shape and size of the Earth, the boundaries of land and oceans, the climates of the Earth; in the third, the land is divided into parts of the world and sphrageds - prototypes of natural zones, and a description of individual countries is also made. He also compiled a geographical map of the populated part of the Earth.

As noted above, Eratosthenes proved the sphericity of the Earth and measured the radius of the globe, and Hipparchus (about 190-125 BC) invented and used a system of meridians and parallels for cartographic projections.

In the Roman Empire, cartography was put at the service of practice. Road maps were created for military, trade and administrative needs. The most famous of them is the so-called Peitinger table (a copy of a map of the 4th century), which is a scroll of 11 glued sheets of parchment 6 m 75 cm long and 34 cm wide. It shows the road network of the Roman Empire from the British Isles to the mouth of the Ganges, amounting to about 104,000 km, with rivers, mountains, settlements.

The crowning achievement of the cartographic works of Roman times was the eight-volume work “Guide to Geography” by Claudius Ptolemy (90-168), where he summarized and systematized the knowledge of ancient scientists about the Earth and the Universe; indicating the coordinates of many geographical points in latitude and longitude; which outlines the basic principles of creating maps and provides the geographical coordinates of 8000 points. And, which during the 14th centuries enjoyed such great popularity among scientists, travelers, and merchants that it was reprinted 42 times.

Ptolemy’s “Geography” contained, as already mentioned, all the information about the Earth available at that time. The maps included with it were very accurate. They have a degree grid.

Ptolemy compiled a detailed map of the Earth, the like of which no one had ever created before. It depicted three parts of the world: Europe, Asia and Libya (as Africa was then called), the Atlantic (Western) Ocean, the Mediterranean (African) and Indian Seas.

8000 (eight thousand) points of the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean were plotted by coordinates; the position of some of them was determined astronomically, and most were plotted along routes.

The map is extended in an easterly direction. Half of the map is devoted to famous countries. In its southern part there is a huge continent called the Unknown Land.

Cartography developed in China independently of European traditions. The oldest surviving document on the official survey of the country and the creation of maps dates back to the Zhou Dynasty (1027-221 BC). And the oldest surviving Chinese maps are considered to be maps on bamboo plates, silk and paper, discovered in Fanmatan tombs of the Qin (221-207 BC) and Western Han (206 BC - 25 AD) times. . BC) dynasties, as well as in the Mawangdui graves of the Western Han dynasty.

These maps are comparable in image quality and detail to topographic maps. They were significantly more accurate than even later European maps.

The main Chinese contribution to the creation of maps was the invention no later than the 2nd century. BC e. paper on which maps began to be drawn, and a rectangular grid of coordinates, which was first used by the great Chinese astronomer and mathematician Zhang Heng (78-139 AD). Subsequently, Chinese cartographers invariably used a rectangular coordinate grid.

A century later, the Chinese cartographer Pei Xiu (224-271) developed principles for drawing maps based on the use of a rectangular grid, as well as principles for measuring distances based on the laws of geometry.

Invented by the Chinese in the 8th century. printing allowed them to be the first in world history to begin printing maps. The first surviving printed Chinese map dates back to 1155.

History of the geographical map. completed by: student of grade 8a MBOU "Gymnasium" No. 5 Krezhkov Nikita

Goal: get acquainted with the history of the creation of a geographical map

Introduction. Cartography is the science of displaying and understanding natural and socio-economic geosystems through maps as models. Cartography originated in ancient times; there are even references to maps in the Bible. The first manuals on cartography were compiled in ancient Greek. scientist K. Ptolemy. Cartography flourished during the Renaissance and the Great Geographical Discoveries. The authors of the famous world maps and the first atlases were the Dutch cartographers G. Mercator and A. Ortelius. In Russia, the development of cartography is associated with the names of S. U. Remezov, V. N. Tatishchev, F. F. Schubert,

“MAP IS THE LANGUAGE OF GEOGRAPHY” talks about objects; you can find out the location; distance can be measured; shows the state of objects.

A map is a reduced, generalized image of the earth's surface on a plane, constructed according to mathematical laws using special notations.

First acquaintance with the map.

Image of the earth's surface in ancient times Drawing on a rock Drawing of the Ancient Egyptians

Picture drawings on ancient maps It is clearly seen that the area was shown with the help of clearly understandable picture drawings.

Map of Transylvania from the “Atlas” of G. Mercator - J. Hondius (1607)

The creator of the first geographical map is considered to be the ancient Greek scientist Anaximander. In the VI century. BC he drew the first map of the then known world, depicting the Earth as a flat circle surrounded by water. In the 3rd century. BC The ancient Greek scientist Eratosthenes wrote the book "Geography", using the terms "geography", "latitude" and "longitude" for the first time. The book consisted of three parts. The first part outlined the history of geography; the second describes the shape and size of the Earth, the boundaries of land and oceans, the climates of the Earth; in the third, the land is divided into parts of the world and sphrageds - prototypes of natural zones, and a description of individual countries is also made. He also compiled a geographical map of the populated part of the Earth.

In the II century. AD The ancient Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy summarized and systematized the knowledge of ancient scientists about the Earth and the Universe in his eight-volume work “Guide to Geography,” which during the 14th centuries enjoyed such great popularity among scientists, travelers, and merchants that it was reprinted 42 times.

The first map of Russia, called the “Big Drawing,” was compiled, as scientists suggest, in the second half of the 16th century. However, neither the “Big Drawing” nor its subsequent supplemented and modified copies have reached us. Only the appendix to the map has survived - “The Book of the Large Drawing”. It contained interesting information about the nature and economic activities of the population, the main roads and main rivers as routes of communication, about “cities” and various defensive structures on the borders of the Russian state.

Peter I considered it a matter of national importance to draw up a map of Russia, which would help in the development of little-known areas of the country, in particular in the study sea route from Novaya Zemlya to the “Tatar Sea” (obviously Pacific Ocean), where he wanted to establish shipyards to build ships to send them to China, Japan and other countries.

Conclusion. Maps don't just help us get from point A to point B. They can serve as a political tool and a snapshot of history, and can reflect the fears and prejudices of their era, says historian Jerry Brotton. One of the amazing things about geographic maps is that people are unwilling to accept the most basic fact of cartography, namely that a map cannot be a 100% objective, accurate representation of our world. Talk to any cartographer and he will tell you that the algorithm for turning a globe into a flat image always leads to certain distortions, manipulations and selectivity. Simply because you can’t turn a circle into a square. But for most people who use maps every day - be it a satnav, online mapping, a mobile phone app or even the good old paper map- the idea that a map is only a partial, selective snapshot of the Earth is simply unbearable.

Heading:

It is impossible to determine when they appeared. Among the archaeological finds on all continents one can see primitive drawings on stones, on bone plates, on birch bark, on wood - these are maps of the immediate surroundings. The maps of the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians have reached us. In the past and present centuries, travelers constantly turned to the cartographic art of the native population. Their maps provided an invaluable service to those who discovered and mapped unknown lands.

The French traveler Henri Duveyrier visited the central Sahara in 1859, in the areas where the Tuaregs lived. He was unable to explore the Ahaggar highlands, and he put it on his map according to data provided to him by Sheikh Otkhan, who sculpted the entire relief of the highlands from wet sand. Other sources also speak about the same relief maps of the Tuaregs.

The southern neighbors of the Tuaregs, the Fulani, were also excellent in the art of cartography. The ruler of Sokoto, Sultan Belo, drew in the sand for the English major Hugh Clapperton the Quorra River along its entire course, with all the bends, turns, tributaries, and allowed his map to be redrawn on paper. French traveler Victor Largeau wrote in 1876 that a Fulban blacksmith drew for him a schematic map in the sand from Tripoli to Timbuktu (between these points the difference in latitude is as much as 16 degrees).

Professor K. Wale at the beginning of this century, crossing from the village of Lindi to Massasi, received from the black Dog Mbili a primitive map of his route. Lindi was depicted in the lower right corner, Massasi in the upper left. Individual huts and even the traveler’s house with its internal location were marked on the map. Edward Robert Flegel showed Chief Abdulrahman a map of part of Africa - the land of the Fulani people and neighboring tribes. The chief, together with one of his advisers, corrected this map by making a drawing in the sand.

When in 1840-1843 the English geographer C. T. Beak studied the sources of the Nile, he received from a resident of these places, the Muslim Omar ibn Neji, a simple, small map of the Sobat River basin, a tributary of the White Nile.

Russian scientist Alexander Fedorovich Middendorf (1815-1894) argued that most Siberian Tungus can quickly draw a map of their surroundings on the sand or snow.

Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkin, a Russian revolutionary and geographer, in the 70s of the 19th century, traveling around Transbaikalia, was guided by a map that a Tungus carved for him on birch bark.

For the remarkable Russian geographer, ethnographer and anthropologist Dmitry Nikolaevich Anuchin, when he traveled through Siberia in 1906, a map of the area of the Yenisei River and its tributary, which is below the village of Lebedev, was drawn by a local resident Shigal.

He depicted the direction of the Yenisei flow using the silhouette of a duck flying in spring migration, and the south with a drawing of the sun as its symbol. At first Shigal drew the sun not exactly in the south, but then corrected his mistake. He marked the forest with two firs. Anuchin recognized the card as very good.

The evidence of V. Yochelson, who at the end of the 9th century conducted a geographical and ethnographic study of the Kolyma region, has been preserved. He received two from local residents small cards made on birch bark. The maps depicted the Kolyma with its tributaries Korkodon and Rassokha, and next to them were villages and hunting grounds.

When L. Strenberg traveled around Sakhalin, his guide was a Nivkh, who made for him a map of the southern part of Sakhalin. He drew the route of the ship "Baikal" from the village of Korsakovskaya to Aleksandrovsk and those protrusions of the mainland past which they sailed.

The Australian aborigines especially amazed travelers with their maps. There were tribes there who lived, perhaps, at the lowest level of social development, almost at the level of the Stone Age, and many of these people were able to draw a surprisingly accurate plan of the surrounding area on a stone or on a piece of tree bark.

In South Australia, designs made on batons are known. These drawings have the meaning of proprietary and tribal symbols, but, in fact, depict the area in which the tribe lives. Thus, for example, in the drawing given here, the native depicted a branch of the Brocken River and a swamp in New South Wells. This is a map of the territory that his tribe occupies, between the swamp and the river.

Completely different and highest degree original maps created by the inhabitants of the Marshall Islands and Polynesia - maps made from sticks. The natives used them when sailing between the islands of the archipelago. The first news about these maps was brought to Europe by the German consul F. Gernsheim. There are currently about 50 such maps in European collections. They are made from thin sticks, located in different directions to each other - straight, at an angle, and shells or pebbles are attached to them. All this is connected by threads of palm fibers. The sticks show the direction of sea currents and the most convenient routes for navigation. Pebbles or shells represent islands.

Augustine Kramer, traveling through the South Pacific in 1897-1899, saw one of the native leaders with a map of the Marshall Islands drawn in a notebook - in shape and outline it resembled stick maps.

One of the first news about Polynesian maps was brought by James Cook (1728-1779). His guide on the 1776 voyage was the Polynesian chief Tupaia. Naturally intelligent, Tupaia knew Polynesia well. Based on his information, a map of the area was drawn up, located between 130°-170° west longitude and 7°-27° south latitude. The map covered an area of 9,200 km2 and included 80 islands. The map has not survived to this day, but two copies exist.

Travelers left very interesting information about the cartographic abilities of the Eskimos - both from the north of Canada and Alaska, and from Greenland. The English Arctic explorer William Edward Parry explored the Hudson Bay area in 1821-1823. The Eskimo Iliglyuk made a sketch for him, with the help of which in July 1822 Parry discovered the strait between the Melville Peninsula and Baffin Island. The Eskimos helped Frederick William Beachy on his journey through the Bering Strait to Kotzebue Bay: they drew him a map on the ground, marking mountains and islands with stones, and fishing villages with sticks stuck into the ground.

In 1848-1859, English captain Francis Leopold McClintock took part in the expedition to rescue polar explorer John Franklin. The Eskimos provided McClintock with valuable information: they drew maps of the coast of Elio Bay and other places on the coast, and even indicated the position of the skeletons of both of Franklin's lost ships. McClintock especially appreciated the maps drawn for him by the Eskimos A-Vah-Lah and Ov-Vang-Noot.

Beginning in 1883, research in the Hudson Bay area was carried out by F. Boa. Many Eskimos and Eskimos made various sketch maps for him. The most interesting of them is the one depicting the Bechler Islands in Hudson Bay. The islands are drawn with amazing accuracy, the image almost completely coincides with the then map of the British navy.

Many travelers noted that the Eskimos, who picked up a pencil for the first time in their lives, could very accurately and in detail depict the outlines of their coast. The extraordinary orientation abilities of the Eskimos were also described by the American geographer Boizet. In 1898, the Eskimo Nuktan, a resident of North Greenland, drew him a map of Smith Bay, identifying areas with and without perpetual glaciers. Later data showed that this is a very accurate drawing.

Danish ethnologist Kai Birketsmit talks about a very special kind of maps. These are relief maps that were carved from wood by the East Greenlandic Eskimos. One of these maps is kept in the National Museum of Copenhagen. The map consists of two parts that are not connected to each other: the left part shows the eastern coast of Greenland, and the narrower right part shows a chain of islands located in front of the coast.

Canadian polar explorer Vilhjalmur Stefanson noted this interesting feature in Eskimo maps: they depict everything that they consider important to them, for example, piers for boats. And the mountains stretching along the coast are unimportant for them, they don’t even depict them.

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The most ancient maps found date back to those times when humanity did not even have an idea of writing. If you think about it, there is an explanation for this - navigating the terrain was much more important to the ancients than keeping chronicles and writing something down.

And it all started with images of the starry sky on the walls of caves. It was in this amazing way that ancient people marked their location more than 18,000 years ago. This knowledge is still used today when leaving unfamiliar places and looking at star constellations.

Only thousands of years later did the first images of the area appear on stones, wood and animal skins, which could be carried with you or passed on to others. But such maps usually covered a relatively small area: usually within 100 square kilometers.

The first attempts to create a map of the entire world appeared approximately 5-3 millennia BC. But they were rarely distinguished by any accuracy, since they did not take into account the fact that the Earth is round.

Who is considered to be the founder of cartography?

Iconic and familiar even to schoolchildren meridians and parallels appeared only in the third century BC. They were created and put on maps by the famous Greek scientist Eratosthenes. He is considered to be the “father” of modern cartography. Although many historians do not agree with this fact and consider a certain Anaximander and even Pythagoras to be such.

The work of Eratosthenes was continued and improved in the second century in Alexandria by the equally famous Ptolemy. It was he who came up with the idea of dividing meridians and parallels into degrees. His maps were unparalleled for 12 centuries.

But the atlases we are accustomed to appeared only at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. This was facilitated by the development of the aeroindustry, photography and the determination of the prime meridian.

Some interesting facts about geographical maps

The history of the emergence and development of cartography throughout the world was not uniform:

The oldest map found in China was drawn on silk and created to mark the path for an assassin.
In ancient times, most people could easily draw a diagram of the surrounding area.
Most Tuareg tribes create relief maps from wet sand.
Some Aboriginal tribes in Australia carve a map of their lands onto wooden weapons as a totem.
The sea guides of ancient Polynesia were a complex weave of threads, mollusk shells, twigs and even stones. At the same time, they displayed all cardinal directions, the smallest atolls, and even the direction of currents.

This is only a tiny part of the unusual facts from the history of the appearance of geographical atlases. But even from this it is clear that the author of the very first map will never be found.