Cartography Index
Hub
Cartography — the science, craft, and politics of representing geographic space — runs from prehistoric petroglyphs through Babylonian clay tablets to the satellite imagery of the present. The subdomain covers cartography as a research domain across every era and civilisation: the earliest surviving maps (the Babylonian Map of the World c. 600 BC, ancient Egyptian gold-mine maps); Greek Ptolemaic geography and the mathematical projection of the spherical earth; Roman itineraria and military road-maps (the Peutinger Table); the Chinese gazetteer-and-grid tradition from the Han through Pei Xiu’s six principles to the Ming Da Ming Hunyi Tu; Islamic geographic synthesis (al-Khwarizmi, al-Idrisi’s planisphere); medieval European mappae mundi and the late-medieval portolan-chart revolution; Renaissance and early-modern projection mathematics (Mercator, Cassini) and the great national surveys (the Cassini map of France, the Ordnance Survey); Iberian Padrón Real and the secret cartographic statecraft of the European deep-sea revolution; Polynesian stick charts and indigenous cartographic traditions outside the European canon; the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Admiralty hydrographic programme and global colonial mapping; twentieth-century aerial photogrammetry, military mapping, and the satellite revolution; and contemporary GIS, Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, and indigenous counter-mapping. Notes treat maps as both technical artefacts and political instruments. The Georgian Admiralty hydrographic effort the current vault focus visits is one moment in a much longer history. Adjacent to MOC_Science_Knowledge, MOC_Geography_Places, MOC_Primary_Documents (Maps and Charts), and MOC_Communications_Signals.
Primary Notes
(empty — populated as content is added)
Roadmap
(planned notes as red-links — add as research identifies gaps)
Methodology
- What Is a Map — Harley, Wood, and the Critical Cartography Tradition
- Map Projections — Why Geometry Matters and What Each Choice Conceals
Ancient
- The Babylonian Map of the World c. 600 BC and Ancient Near Eastern Cartography
- Ptolemaic Geography — Coordinates, Climate Zones, and the Mathematical World
- Roman Itineraria and Military Cartography — The Peutinger Table
- Early Chinese Mapping — Pei Xiu’s Six Principles and the Han-Tang Tradition
Medieval
- Mappae Mundi — The T-O Map and Christian Cosmographic Cartography
- Al-Idrisi’s Planisphere and Islamic Geographic Synthesis
- Portolan Charts — Mediterranean Pilot Cartography and Its Diffusion
- The Da Ming Hunyi Tu and Ming Chinese World Mapping
Early Modern
- Mercator’s Projection and the Mathematical Reform of Charting
- The Padrón Real — Iberian Imperial Cartography as State Secret
- The Cassini Map of France — National Survey and Triangulation
- Tokugawa Mapping — Kuni-ezu, the Ino Tadataka Survey, and Imperial Geography
- Polynesian Stick Charts — Indigenous Cartography Beyond the European Canon
Age of Sail (current vault focus)
- The Admiralty Hydrographic Office — Foundation, Dalrymple, and Early Surveys
- Murdoch Mackenzie’s Orcades — Scotland and the Reform of Chart-Making
- French Neptune du Coeur — Rival Charting Programmes and Captured Intelligence
- Chart Trade in Georgian London — Sellers, Bowles, and the Commercial Market
- Soundings and Shoals — How Survey Methods Shaped Battle Planning
Modern
- The Ordnance Survey and Nineteenth-Century National Mapping
- Colonial Cartography — Africa, India, and the Imperial Survey Apparatus
- Aerial Photogrammetry and Twentieth-Century Military Mapping
- The Satellite Revolution — LANDSAT, GPS, and Global Mapping
- GIS, Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, and the Twenty-First-Century Cartographic Commons
- Indigenous Counter-Mapping and the Politics of the Map
Cross-Cutting
- See also: MOC_Science_Knowledge
- See also: _Home