The British Library

In 150 AD, the Greek scholar Claudius Ptolemy wrote a textbook entitled the Geography, which earned him the title ‘The Father of Geography’. Drawing on nearly a thousand years of classical learning, Ptolemy’s book provided a list of over 8,000 locations known to Greco-Roman civilization, centered on the Mediterranean. Ptolemy’s world stretches from the Canary Islands in the west to Korea in the east. Iceland is the northernmost point, there is no Pacific or American landmass, and South Africa is joined to Asia. Ptolemy’s book also provided a written description of how to draw world maps, using a grid of intersecting lines known as a graticule. He also invented two map projections. Ironically, no maps drawn by Ptolemy have ever been found; the first ones appeared in Byzantium over a thousand years after his death.

Next Al-Sharif al-Idrisi, World Map, 1154