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Reader Question – Gabriel Gustavo Sanches Martins,
Sao Paulo-SP
The first image that portrays the world as we know it today is by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller (1475-1522). Dividing the Earth between East and West, it was created in April 1507, 15 years after the arrival of Europeans on the American continent. Waldseemüller’s map was the first to use the term “America” and was based on drawings by Ptolemy (90-168 AD), a Greek scientist considered the father of cartography. Initially known as Universal Cosmography, it was reproduced in a thousand copies, of which only one survives today, in the US Library of Congress. Before the Germans, other peoples tried to record their conceptions of the world, even if incompletely, such as the Chinese, who sketched maps dated 10,000 BC But everything changed during the Modern Age. With the mercantilist expansion, new elements were incorporated into the world maps with details, information and precision never before seen. The Portuguese, thanks to their vast experience in navigation, incorporated sea routes, wind directions, time estimates and distances between ports, creating the most advanced cartography in Europe in the 14th century! But the Dutch took the lead when Gerard Mercator established a new model of projection in the 16th century, based on nautical distances, with drawings that represented rivers and mountains. From there, the Dutch led the distribution of maps for the next 100 years.
In 2012, German librarians found a copy of the world map made by Waldseemüller. The document had been forgotten in a box since World War II.
Sources: Iris Kantor, professor at the Department of History at USP; book The History of Cartography, Volumes 1 and 2; video Cartographic Representations, by Univesp TV