Cartography

Cartography is the art, the skill, and the science of making maps. Human beings have been creating pictorial representations of spatial information for thousands of years. The earliest maps were probably crude temporary drawings made on the ground in dust or mud, designed to show simple landmarks guiding a journey, the position of a herd of animals and the points of attack a group of hunters might pursue, or other simple data and features. Over time, the necessity of illustrating more sophisticated and detailed spatial information became common, especially with the rise of cities, which eventually became so large that even many of the permanent residents were not familiar with some parts of the urban setting. The Babylonians, for example, made maps of their cities and, like a number of early civilizations, also studied the stars. Astronomical drawings and charts were also an important ancient application of cartography, often used not only for scientific applications but for religious purposes as well. The Babylonians may have produced the first map of the “world,” at least the world as they knew it, in the Imago Mundi, a geographical depiction of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley and its environs.