2000 years of map making

The first attempts at map making were made long before the Christian era. N ow it is an advanced form of technology with an immense annual output of ma ps of many different kinds and for many different markets This article prov ides an overview of the major changes in the actual processes ol technology of map making, worldwide, through two millennia, with particular attention to new ideas inventions or discoveries. The legacy of early civilisations and classical Greek science are taken as the starting point, and the state of progress up to the fall of Rome is briefly assessed. The origins of the revival after the Dark Ages are considered with reference to the respective contributions of the rediscovery of classical manuscripts independent inve ntions in China, and the transmission of ideas about these early developmen ts via the;Middle East, Egypt southern and central Europe to England in the fifteenth century AD 1500-2000 is considered as a period of accelerating t echnological progress, triggered off by the rediscovery of Ptolemy explorat ion and the advent of commercial printing and ending with the impact of com puterisation in the last few decades of the twentieth century.