topics: |  cartography | history

History of (western) Map-making

The history of map-making, from Ptolemy to the ideas of Latitude and
Longitude, to the genesis of modern surveys, particularly Cassini's
topographic survey of France from 1680 to 1744.

Mainly the western history; For instance, surveys had been conducted in
China as early as 600 BCE, and the earliest surviving map based on field
surveys (i.e. available to us today) may be three military maps that
were discovered in a tomb in Hunan province in China in the early 1970s,
and may have been prepared for the king of Changsha (presently the capital
city of Hunan).  These maps date from around 168 BCE.
For a slightly more  global view, check out Jeremy Harwood's
To the ends of the Earth: 100 Maps that Changed the World (2006), or to a
lesser degree, Berthon and Robinson's Shape of the world.

Blurb:
Early map making was characterized by secrecy. Maps were precious
documents, drawn by astrologers and travelers, worn out through use or
purposely destroyed. Just as men first mapped the earth indirectly, via the
sun and stars, so must the history of maps be approahced circuitously,
through chronicles, astronomy, Strabo and Ptolemy, seamanship, commerce,
politics. From the first determinations of latitude 2000 years ago through
the dramatic unraveling of longitude 1700 years later, the story of maps
plots the course of civilization. "The Story of Maps, " published 1979
charts that course with a breadth and depth still unsurpassed in a
scholarly survey.