Cartography (in
Greek chartis = map and
graphein = write) is the study and practice of making
geographical maps. Combining science,
aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
The fundamental problems of cartography are to[citation needed]
The earliest known map is a matter of some debate, both because the definition of "map" is not sharp and because some artifacts speculated to be maps might actually be something else. A wall painting, which may depict the ancient Anatolian city of Çatalhöyük (previously known as Catal Huyuk or Çatal Hüyük), has been dated to the late 7th millennium BCE.[1][2] Other known maps of the ancient world include the Minoan “House of the Admiral” wall painting from c. 1600 BCE, showing a seaside community in an oblique perspective and an engraved map of the holy Babylonian city of Nippur, from the Kassite period (14th&_160;– 12th centuries BCE).[3]
The ancient Greeks and Romans created maps, beginning at latest with Anaximander in the 6th century BC.[4] In the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy produced his treatise on cartography, Geographia. [5] This contained Ptolemy's world map - the world then known to Western society (Ecumene). As early as the 700s, Arab scholars were translating the works of the Greek geographers into Arabic.[6]
