The earliest known world maps date to classical antiquity, the oldest examples of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE still … See more

The Saint-Bélec slab discovered in 1900 by Paul du Châtellier, in Finistère, France, is dated to between 1900 BCE and 1640 BCE. A recent analysis, published in the Bulletin of the French Prehistoric Society, has shown that … See more

Around 550 Cosmas Indicopleustes wrote the copiously illustrated Christian Topography, a work partly based on his personal experiences as a merchant on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean in the early 6th century. Th… See more

The Juan de la Cosa, a Spanish cartographer, explorer and conquistador, born in Santoña in the northern autonomous region of Cantabria, made several maps of which the only survivor is the Mappa Mundi of 1500. It i… See more

• Cylcon, Aboriginal Australian cylindro-conical stones some of which are thought to contain maps
• Dieppe maps, a series of 16th-century world maps produced in Dieppe, France… See more