Since its beginning in 1972, the Landsat program has been the single most transformative force in modern cartography. Before Landsat, mapping was a slow and…
Evolving mapping technologies have reshaped the history of cartography. From a dusty broom to artificial intelligence, these advancements revealed the world’s largest geoglyphs. The Nazca…
For nearly two hundred years, European maps depicted a massive body of water in the interior of Florida. It dominated the American Southeast. It was…
The De Virga World Map (circa 1411–1415) is one of the most intriguing artifacts in early European cartography. It is also under-appreciated in its historical…
The Cartographer of the Impossible: Percival Lowell and the Martian Cobwebs Welcome, fellow wanderers and lovers of the leaf-shaped map, to “The Whimsical Atlas.” Today,…
Stieler’s Hand-Atlas: how a German folio reshaped cartographic taste, 1816–1945 Adolf Stieler’s Hand-Atlas, formally Hand-Atlas über alle Theile der Erde und über das Weltgebäude. Is…
️The Zeno Map: A Cartographic Cold Case of Genius and Imposture In the vast and often mysterious history of cartography, few documents spark as much…
North is at the Top When most people look at a modern map, they instinctively expect one thing: north at the top. This convention of…
Long before satellites traced the planet with mathematical precision, cartographers faced a fundamental challenge. They needed to decide how to measure the world from a…
The mid-sixteenth century map is commonly attributed to Hacı Ahmet (also spelled “Hadji Ahmed”). It is one of the most curious and rich artifacts in…