Cartography, History of

Existing histories of geography and cartography in the Western world have generally focused on one or the other of these disciplines, thereby missing the significance of their interdependent development. Maps are an integral and integrating element for geography. While much of the practice of cartography operates independently of geography, work in geography has often been explicated best by maps. The exploration and mapping of the world have been widely documented, as, for example, in coffee-table books illustrated with early maps, but the developing map of the world (from Waldseemüller's map naming America in 1507 to Heezen and Tharp's depiction of the ocean floor in 1977) is only a small part of the broad picture. The focus in this entry is on the ways in which maps have been used in many cultural environments over the millennia. This approach unites geography and cartography by tracing the uses of maps as tools in human interaction with the spatial environment. The history of cartography is not just a timeline of significant maps and associated major events. It is more important to understand how maps have been used and what they have contributed to the cultures that produced them and how they reflect the characteristics and activities of the times and places in which they were created and employed.