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A world map is a
map A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
of most or all of the surface of
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
. World maps, because of their scale, must deal with the problem of projection. Maps rendered in two dimensions by necessity distort the display of the three-dimensional surface of the earth. While this is true of any map, these distortions reach extremes in a world map. Many techniques have been developed to present world maps that address diverse technical and aesthetic goals. Charting a world map requires global knowledge of the earth, its oceans, and its continents. From prehistory through the
Middle ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, creating an accurate world map would have been impossible because less than half of Earth's coastlines and only a small fraction of its continental interiors were known to any culture. With exploration that began during the European
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
, knowledge of the Earth's surface accumulated rapidly, such that most of the world's coastlines had been mapped, at least roughly, by the mid-1700s and the continental interiors by the twentieth century. Maps of the world generally focus either on political features or on physical features. Political maps emphasize territorial boundaries and human settlement. Physical maps show
geographical Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
features such as mountains, soil type, or
land use Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields, pastures, and managed woods. Land use by humans has a long ...
. Geological maps show not only the surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures.
Choropleth map A choropleth map () is a type of statistical thematic map that uses pseudocolor, i.e., color corresponding with an aggregate summary of a geographic characteristic within spatial enumeration units, such as population density or per-capita inc ...
s use color hue and intensity to contrast differences between regions, such as demographic or economic statistics.


Map projections

All world maps are based on one of several map projections, or methods of representing a
globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glo ...
on a plane. All projections distort geographic features, distances, and directions in some way. The various map projections that have been developed provide different ways of balancing accuracy and the unavoidable distortion inherent in making world maps. Perhaps the best-known projection is the Mercator Projection, originally designed as a
nautical chart A nautical chart is a graphic representation of a sea area and adjacent coastal regions. Depending on the scale of the chart, it may show depths of water and heights of land ( topographic map), natural features of the seabed, details of the co ...
. File:Mercator projection SW.jpg, Mercator projection
(82°S and 82°N) File:Mollweide projection SW.jpg,
Mollweide projection 400px, Mollweide projection of the world 400px, The Mollweide projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation The Mollweide projection is an equal-area, pseudocylindrical map projection generally used for maps of the world or celestial sph ...
Image:Cahill Butterfly Map.jpg, B.J.S. Cahill Butterfly Map, 1909, from 1919 pamphlet File:Azimuthal equidistant projection SW.jpg, Polar azimuthal equidistant projection Image:Blank-map-world-south-up.png, A south-up map Image:BlankMap-World-162E.svg,
Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
-centric map
(more commonly used in
East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...
n and
Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...
countries) File:Gall–Peters projection SW.jpg, Gall–Peters projection, an equal-area map projection File:Robinson projection SW.jpg, Robinson projection, formerly used by
National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, an ...


Thematic maps

A
thematic map A thematic map is a type of map that portrays the geographic pattern of a particular subject matter (theme) in a geographic area. This usually involves the use of map symbols to visualize selected properties of geographic features that are n ...
shows geographical information about one or a few focused subjects. These maps "can portray physical, social, political, cultural, economic, sociological, agricultural, or any other aspects of a city, state, region, nation, or continent". Image:Köppen-vereinfacht.svg,
Clickable world map Point and click are the actions of a computer user moving a pointer to a certain location on a screen (''pointing'') and then pressing a button on a mouse, usually the left button (''click''), or other pointing device. An example of point and cl ...

(with climate classification) Image:World Map (political).svg, A simple political map of the world Image:World map.png, Topographical map of the world File:CO2 responsibility 1950-2000.svg, Map of anthropogenic CO2 emission by country File:2016 UN Human Development Report.svg, United Nations
Human Development Index The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, wh ...
by country as of 2016 File:Life Expectancy 2008 Estimates CIA World Factbook.png, World map showing
life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...
File:Population density of countries 2018 world map, people per sq km.svg, 2018 population density
(people per km2) by country Image:Volcano Map.png, Volcano map File:Laurasia-Gondwana.svg, World map showing the continents circa 200 million years ago ( Triassic period) File:BlackMarble20161km.jpg,
Satellite image Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell ima ...
of Earth at night


Historical maps

Early world maps The earliest known world maps date to classical antiquity, the oldest examples of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE still based on the flat Earth paradigm. World maps assuming a spherical Earth first appear in the Hellenistic period. The developments ...
cover depictions of the
world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
from the
Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
to the
Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafarin ...
and the emergence of modern
geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...
during the early modern period. Old maps provide information about places that were known in past times, as well as the philosophical and cultural basis of the map, which were often much different from modern cartography. Maps are one means by which scientists distribute their ideas and pass them on to
future generations Future generations are cohorts of hypothetical people not yet born. Future generations are contrasted with current and past generations, and evoked in order to encourage thinking about intergenerational equity. The moral patienthood of future g ...
. File:OrteliusWorldMap1570.jpg, The world, Abraham Ortelius's '' Typus Orbis Terrarum'', first published in 1564 File:Anaximander world map-en.svg, Hypothetical reconstruction of the world map of Anaximander (610–546 BC) File:Worldmaphedo.jpg, World map according to
Posidonius Posidonius (; grc-gre, Ποσειδώνιος , "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher nativ ...
(150–130 BC),
drawn in 1628 File:Radkarte MKL1888.png, Ideal reconstruction of medieval T-and-O maps (from ''Meyers Konversationslexikon'', 1895)
(Asia shown on the right) File:TabulaRogeriana.jpg, Tabula Rogeriana world map by
Muhammad al-Idrisi Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani as-Sabti, or simply al-Idrisi ( ar, أبو عبد الله محمد الإدريسي القرطبي الحسني السبتي; la, Dreses; 1100 – 1165), was a Muslim geographer, cartogra ...
in 1154
note that north is to the bottom File:Leonardo da Vinci’s Mappamundi.jpg, World map in Octant projection (1514), from Leonardo da Vinci's Windsor papers File:Mercator 1569.png, World map by
Gerardus Mercator Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and Cartography, cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the Mercator 1569 world map, 1569 world map based on ...
(1569), first map in the well-known Mercator projection File:Kunyu Wanguo Quantu (坤輿萬國全圖).jpg, alt=, '' Kunyu Wanguo Quantu'' (
Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...
, 1602) File:Claes Janszoon Visscher - Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica Ac Hydrographica Tabula Autore'.jpg, 1652 world map
by Claes Janszoon Visscher File:World Map 1689.JPG, A historical map of the world by Gerard van Schagen, 1689


See also

* Wikipedia's
clickable world map Point and click are the actions of a computer user moving a pointer to a certain location on a screen (''pointing'') and then pressing a button on a mouse, usually the left button (''click''), or other pointing device. An example of point and cl ...
* Global Map *
Globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glo ...
*
International Map of the World The International Map of the World or IMW (also called the Millionth Map of the World, after its scale of 1:1 000 000) was a project to create a complete map of the world according to internationally agreed standards. It was first proposed by th ...
* List of map projections *
List of world map changes Timeline of geopolitical changes may refer to: * Timeline of geopolitical changes (before 1900) * Timeline of geopolitical changes (1900–1999) * Timeline of geopolitical changes (2000–present) * List of national border changes from 1815 to 1 ...
* Mappa mundi * Maps of the world * Rhumbline network *
Theorema Egregium Gauss's ''Theorema Egregium'' (Latin for "Remarkable Theorem") is a major result of differential geometry, proved by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1827, that concerns the curvature of surfaces. The theorem says that Gaussian curvature can be determi ...
*
Time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...


References


Further reading

* Edson, Evelyn (2011)
''The World Map, 1300–1492: The Persistence of Tradition and Transformation''
JHU Press. * Harvey, P. D. A. (2006)
''The Hereford world map: medieval world maps and their context''
British Library. {{Authority control