Historical View of Geography

(2ND hand out)

Pangaea: 250 - 200 million years ago
Land surface merges into one single continent
about 250 million years ago
called Pangaea (Greek for 'all earth)
About 200 million years ago, Pangaea splits into
two parts, north and south, separated by water the Tethys Sea.
The area North of the Tethys Sea, named
Laurasia, includes the future north America,
Europe and most of Asia.
South of the sea, a continent named
Gondwanaland is made up of what will be South
America, Antarctica, Africa, India and Australia.
From one continent to six: 200 - 20 million years ago
Reshaping of the surface of the earth
First south America splits from Africa and drifts
westwards (it is the snug fit between their coast
lines which suggests the idea of continental drift to
Alfred Wegener in 1912).
Then Antarctica, India and Australia separate from
Africa. Antarctica moves to the south, while India
and Australia drift north and east.
Africa and India move slowly but forcefully
towards Europe and Asia, reducing the Tethys
Sea to its present-day remnant (the
Mediterranean) and throwing up the Alps and the
Himalayas from the force of the collision.

Finally north America splits from Europe and Asia

(though remaining almost linked at its northern
tip), thus forming the Atlantic ocean and
completing the disposition of the continents as
we know them.
The geographers of Miletus: 6th century BC
Anaximander of Miletus
= disciple of Thales.
= the first to draw the inhabited world on a map or tablet.
Hecataeus of Miletus
= According to Hecataeus, the shape of the world has a
geometrical simplicity. It is a flat circle, with a continuous
ocean forming the rim.
= Hes map was a great advance, because he
understood the relative positions of the continents.
Hecataeus' Map
is divided into three thirds (Europe, Asia, Africa),
which are divided by the Mediterranean, the Red
and the Black Seas.
The circular land mass is divided into two parts by
an almost unbroken stretch of water linked with

the ocean on the west at the straits of Gibraltar,

then running east the length of the Mediterranean,
through the Black Sea and (after a short land
bridge) into the Caspian Sea, which joins the
ocean on the east.
The semicircle of land above this belt of water is
Europe, while the semicircle below is Asia. The
part west of the Nile has the subsidiary name of
Libya, standing in for Africa.

The coast of northwest Europe: c.310 BC

Pytheas
an explorer from the Greek city of Massilia (now
Marseilles, France).
the first Greek to visit and describe the British
Isles and the Atlantic coast of Europe.
He visited some northern European countries and
may have reached the mouth of the Vistula River
on the Baltic Sea. He also told of Thule, the
northernmost inhabited island, six days sail from
northern Britain and extending at least to
the Arctic Circle; the region he visited may have
been Iceland or Norway.
As a result of this report Thule (presumably
Norway) becomes for all Greek and Roman
geographers the most northerly place in the world.
The circumference of the earth: calculated c. 220 BC
Eratosthenes
was the third librarian of the famous library in
Alexandria and an outstanding scholar all around.
He is remembered by his measurement of the
circumference of the Earth, estimates of the
distances to the sun and the moon, and, in
mathematics, for the invention of an algorithm for
collecting prime numbers.
The algorithm is known as the Sieve of
Eratosthenes.
He discovers that camels take 50 days to make
the journey from Aswan (South of Egypt), and he
measures an average day's walk by this fairly
predictable beast of burden. It gives him a figure
of about 46,000 km for the circumference of the
earth. This is, amazingly, only 15% out (40,000 km
is closer to the truth).
A grid before its time: 2nd century BC
Hipparchus
foresees in the 2nd century BC the requirements
of a modern map.
One of the most rigorous of Greek scientists, the
astronomer Hipparchus, He is critical of
mapmaking efforts by his Greek contemporaries,
based on measurements taken on the ground.
Instead he proposes a grid of 360 of latitude and

of longitude (a number relating back to

Babylonian systems), on which places will be
plotted according to astronomical readings taken
on location.
The influential errors of Ptolemy: 2nd century AD
Ptolemy
working in Alexandria in the 2nd century AD, is
one of the great synthesizers of history.
His influence derives from the accident that his
predecessors' works are lost while his have
survived.
Their achievements are known only through him,
and when he disagrees with them it is usually he
who is wrong.
Just as in astronomy he wrongly adjusts the
degree of precession of Hipparchus, so in
geography he rejects Eratosthenes, whose
calculation of the circumference of the earth is
very close, and prefers instead another estimate
which is 30% too small.
In geography Ptolemy seems to offer what
Hipparchus had proposed - the location of the
world's natural and man-made features on a grid
of 360 of latitude and longitude. He lists and
places some 8000 towns, islands, rivers and
mountains. But he is no more capable of providing
accurate data, astronomically based, than
Hipparchus was.
The results are wildly inaccurate. But the great
prestige of Ptolemy means that with the revival of
classical learning, in the Renaissance, his errors
become enshrined in the earliest printed maps
The Medieval World: 5th - 15th century
The temperate belt of the northern hemisphere,
from Britain to China, is reasonably familiar from
trade and travel by the time of the late Roman
Empire. From the 7th century the spread of
Islam provides further detail, as subsequently do
travelers such as Marco Polo or Ibn Batuta.
Marco Polo
- first European to reach China ,but he was the first
to leave a detailed chronicle of his experience
whose travels are recorded in Livres des
merveilles du monde (Book of the Marvels of the
World, also known as The Travels of Marco Polo,
c. 1300), a book that inspired Christopher
Columbus and many other travelers in Central
Asia and China.

Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta

- a Moroccan Muslim scholar and traveler, known
for his traveling and going on excursions called
the Rihla. His journeys lasted for a period of
almost thirty years. This covered nearly the whole
of the known Islamic world and beyond, extending
from North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe
and Eastern Europe in the West, to the Middle
East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast
Asia and China in the East, a distance readily
surpassing that of his predecessors.
o

Much information is forgotten or becomes

confused; the medieval love of a marvelous tale
and mystery but the known world is seen as a
rectangular chunk of continuous land, like a belt
round most of the earth, with a single ocean
dividing western Europe from eastern Asia.

Ptolemy and the Renaissance: 15th century

Ptolemys manuscripts become known by 1400,
his account of world geography is widely available
after it is translated into Latin in 1410.
With the arrival of printing later in the century, a
world map based on Ptolemy's information is a
natural project for the publishers.
The first printed version, done from engraved
copper plates, appears in Bologna in 1477. The
projection of the map is redrawn and made clearer
in the 1482 German edition, printed in Ulm from
wood blocks.
The Ptolemaic map shows the known world, from
the Atlantic coast in the west to China and India in
the east. India stretches on through what we now
call Indonesia, to reach the edge of the map
below China. The supposed ocean separating
Europe from China and India is the unseen region
behind the map.
Another Ptolemaic error is disproved by the
explorers just a few years later. Even though
Herodotus reported that a Phoenician fleet had
sailed round the southern tip of Africa, the
Ptolemaic map shows south Africa extending east
through terra incognita to join up with India in the
far East, making the Indian Ocean a vast inland
sea.
In 1497 Vasco da Gama makes his way round the
Cape of Good Hope, pioneering the sea route to
India which he reaches in 1498. Rarely until the
20th century has new technology, in this case the
printed map, been so rapidly outdated.

The first globe: 1492

The Atlantic ocean begins to acquire a

western edge and a definable shape after the
discovery of the Caribbean by Columbus in
1492, followed by the exploration of the coast
of Venezuela by a Spaniard (Alonso de
Ojeda) in 1499-1500 and then landfall in
Brazil in 1500 by a Portuguese navigator
(Pedro Cabral).
This coastline is still believed (following the
theories of Ptolemy and Columbus) to be part
of Asia. That theory is not necessarily
disproved by news which begins to reach the
Spaniards as they make contact with the
Indians of central America. The Indians speak
of another sea not far away to the west.
Such a sea, if this land is indeed Asia, would
consist of a huge bay somewhere south of
China. It becomes known as the mar del sur
('south sea').
An expedition to find the south sea is
mounted, in a mood of urgency, by Vasco
Nez de Balboa in 1513, governor of a
Spanish colony which he has established.

Martin Behaim
- the creator of the world's first globe - made in
Nuremberg in 1492.
His idea is excellent. A globe is the only accurate
way of representing the surface of the earth. His
misfortune is to base his globe on Ptolemy (who
postulates a single ocean between Spain and
China) and to achieve his three-dimensional
version of this notion in the very year in which it is
disproved - by Columbus reaching America.
Columbus and the Catholic monarchs: 1492
In Santa Fe, a royal encampment from which the
siege of Granada is conducted, the Spanish
monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella debate whether
to accept a proposal put to them by a visionary
explorer, Christopher Columbus.
Columbus believes that he has found
mathematical proof of this in an apocryphal text of
the Old Testament where the prophet Esdras
states that the earth is six parts land to one part
sea.
Columbus argues, first to the king of Portugal in
1484 and then to the Spanish monarchs, that
India is therefore within reach of a caravel sailing
west from the Canaries.
The Portuguese court rejects his argument. The
Spanish monarchs delay for years while a
commission investigates his claims. Finally, in the
camp near Granada, they accept his somewhat
exorbitant terms regarding the honours which will
be heaped upon him if he reaches India or China,
and his share of whatever is found.
Santa Maria, Pinta and Nia: 1492-1493

Balboa
- comes to believe that the south sea, with its fabled riches,
could be reached from here in a fairly short expedition with
a force of 1000 fighting men.
-Somewhere in this south sea there must lie the Spice
Islands, or Moluccas, already discovered by the
Portuguese travelling eastwards (the first local treaties
signed by the Portuguese in these islands date from 1512).
-The final discovery of the extent of the Pacific derives from
a bold geographical theory, held by the navigator Ferdinand
Magellan, as to where precisely the Moluccas might be.
Magellan's theory: 1518
Ferdinand Magellan

Columbus is in command of the largest, the Santa

Maria; the captains of the other two, the
Pinta and the Nia, are the brothers Martin
Alonso and Vicente Yaez Pinzn.
Three weeks are spent loading stores in the
Canaries until, on September 6, the three ships
sail west into the unknown. During the next month
there are several sightings of coastlines which
turn out to be illusions. At last, on October 12, a
look-out on the Pinta spies real land.

Atlantic and Pacific: 1492-1519

learns the craft of navigator, between 1505 and

1512, voyaging to and around the East Indies in
the service of his native Portugal.
In 1516 his request for promotion is refused by the
Portuguese king, who informs him that he may
offer his services elsewhere.
The only alternative employment for a man of his
skills is with Spain, Portugal's great rival on the
oceans. As it happens, Magellan now holds a
theory which could prove greatly to Spain's
advantage.
The pope has granted to Spain all newly found
territory lying west of the Tordesillas line, and to
Portugal everything to the east of it. In terms of

modern longitude, the line is approximately 50 W.

In 1518 Magellan persuades the Spanish king that
the spice islands, or Moluccas, may be less than
half way round the globe travelling west from
theTordesillas line. If that is the case, the islands
would belong to Spain.
He is almost right. The longitude of the Moluccas
is about 125 E. They are therefore 185 west of
the Tordesillas line, or just 5 more than half way
round the globe. Spain will have a valid case, for
instruments of the time cannot be so precise. But
first Magellan has to reach his destination sailing
westwards.

Magellan and Del Cano: 1519-1522

On November 28 the three caravels begin their
journey across an unknown ocean. The crossing
lasts ninety-nine days, without replenishment of
food or water. The explorers finally make landfall,
at Guam in the Marianas, on March 6. It has been
three months of nightmarish deprivation, with the
crew reduced in the end to eating leather from the
rigging. But the sea itself has been sufficiently
friendly for Magellan to give it a name which sticks
- the Pacific ocean.
The next landfall is in the Philippines.

On the island of Cebu Magellan and his party

rapidly convert the ruler to Christianity, beginning
a Spanish link with the Philippines which will last
until 1898. But in April, Magellan is killed in a
skirmish with natives on the island of Mactan.

He is already west (and slightly north) of his

destination in the Moluccas, and he has achieved
the hardest part of the undertaking - coaxing his
often mutinous crews across a vast unknown
expanse of ocean. But the glory of leading the first
complete circumnavigation of the globe falls to
one of his officers, Juan Sebastian del Cano.

Del Cano finally reaches Spain in September

1522 with a single ship (the Victoria, only survivor
of the fleet of five) and seventeen Europeans from
the original crew of 265, together with four
Indians. He is granted by the Spanish king,
Charles V, a suitable addition to his coat of arms the device of a globe and the inscription Primus
circum de disti me (Latin for 'you first encircled
me').

Problems of projection: 16th century

The European discovery of America and of

the Pacific coincides with an increase in ocean
travel and with the new printing techniques of
woodcut and engraving. The result is a great
demand for maps which can be cheaply produced
and which, unlike a globe, will take little space lying flat, and capable of being folded or even
bound into book form.
The printed map is in its vigorous infancy during
the 16th century. But a globe remains the only
accurate way of representing the land masses on
the surface of the spherical earth. How are the
newly discovered facts of world geography to be
represented on a flat surface?
The particular distortion chosen is known as the
map's projection. One of the best known is that
used by Gerardus Mercator.
His framework is far from new. The grid system of
latitude and longitude dates back to Hipparchus in
the 2nd century BC, and the prime meridian (or 0
longitude) has run through the Canaries since the
second century AD, placed there by Ptolemy. But
Mercator's projection is based on new scientific
principles.
Mercator's projection and atlas: 1569-1595
Mercator publishes in 1569 a map of the world
specifically stated, in its title, to be intended as an
aid to navigation. It is laid out on the projection
now known by Mercator's name, though it has
been used by one or two others before him.
The distortion of Mercator's projection is a benefit
to navigators. By gradually lengthening the lines of
longitude towards the poles, Mercator achieves a
matching scale for longitude and latitude in every
section of the map (the northern degrees of
latitude, being shorter in reality, are exaggerated
on a regular grid). A compass course can be
plotted at the same angle on any part of
Mercator's map. As a result marine charts still use
this projection.
From 1569 Mercator devotes himself to a vast
project, producing a series of maps of Europe
which compare Ptolemy's version with
improvements based on modern knowledge.
By the time of his death Mercator has either
published or prepared large engraved maps,
designed for binding into volume form, of France,
Germany, Italy, the Balkans and the British Isles.
A year after his death, in 1595, Mercator's son
issues the entire series under the title Atlas sive

Cosmographicae Meditationes ('Atlas, or

cosmographic meditations'), is the first collection
to bear the title 'atlas'. Probably based on the
Greek mythological character Atlas, whose task is
to support the heavens, the name becomes the
standard European word for a volume of maps.
Terra Australis: 16th-18th century
From the early 16th century European merchants
are sailing the seas of southeast Asia. Often they
make unexpected landfall, raising hopes of
unknown territories rich in gold, silver or spice.
The discovery of the Solomon Islands by a
Spanish vessel in 1568 prompts interest in a socalled Terra Australis Incognita ('unknown
southern land'). Part of the brief given to Francis
Drake, when he sets off in 1577 to sail across the
Pacific, is that he should search for this supposed
land of treasure.
Chronometer: 1714-1766
Two centuries of ocean travel, since the first
European voyages of discovery, have made it
increasingly important for ships' captains whether on naval or merchant business - to be
able to calculate their position accurately in any of
the world's seas. With the help of the simple and
ancient astrolabe, the stars will reveal latitude.
But on a revolving planet, longitude is harder. You
need to know what time it is, before you can
discover what place it is.
The terms are demanding. To win the prize a
chronometer (a solemnly scientific term for a
clock, first used in a document of this year) must
be sufficiently accurate to calculate longitude
within thirty nautical miles at the end of a journey
to the West Indies. This means that in rough seas,
damp salty conditions and sudden changes of
temperature the instrument must lose or gain not
more than three seconds a day - a level of
accuracy unmatched at this time by the best
clocks in the calmest London drawing rooms.
By 1735 Harrison has built the first chronometer
which he believes approaches the necessary
standard. Over the next quarter-century he
replaces it with three improved models before
formally undergoing the government's test. His
innovations include bearings which reduce friction,
weighted balances interconnected by coiled
springs to minimize the effects of movement, and
the use of two metals in the balance spring to
cope with expansion and contraction caused by
changes of temperature.

The only chronometer ready for the test is

designed by Pierre Le Roy. At the end of forty-six
days, his machine is accurate to within eight
seconds.
Three voyages of Captain Cook: 1768-1779
- His first expedition, sailing in the Endeavour from
Plymouth in 1768, has a scientific task as its
central mission. It is known to the astronomers of
the day that in June 1769 the planet Venus will
pass directly between the earth and the sun. An
international effort is made to time the precise
details of this transit, as seen from different parts
of the world, in the hope of calculating the earth's
distance from the sun.
- Cook first mission is to sail to Tahiti, set up a
telescope for this purpose and take the necessary
readings.
- Cook's second purpose is exploration. He is to
continue the search for the supposed southern
land, Terra Australis, and he is to chart the coast
of the known territory of New Zealand. He has
among his passengers scientists of another
discipline. The botanists Joseph Banks and his
Swedish colleague Daniel Solander are eager to
collect specimens of Pacific flora.
- Cook observes the transit of Venus in the
summer of 1769 and then spends the next
eighteen months charting the entire coast of New
Zealand's two main islands and the east coast of
Australia. The Endeavour is back in Britain in July
1771.
- One issue not resolved is whether there is an
unknown southern continent south of New
Zealand. Cook now proposes another voyage to
more southerly latitudes.
- Cook sails from England in 1772 (now in
theResolution) and spends the three antarctic
summers of 1772, 1773 and 1774 in a complete
circumnavigation of the ice mass of the south pole
- proving finally that there is no unknown
habitable continent in the south (though Cook
suspects, rightly, that there may be land under the
ice).
- Back in England in 1775, Cook reveals
another scientific aspect to his explorations.
His crew have remained surprisingly healthy in
these long voyages, avoiding the sailor's
debilitating disease of scurvy. Cook publishes a
paper on his method for avoiding this condition.
His men are given a regular ration of lemon
juice.

-Cook has discovered the importance of vitamin

C, long before the substance itself is identified.
The navy adopts his method, later substituting
lime juice for lemon (causing British sailors in
foreign ports to be known as 'limeys').
-Cook's aim on his third voyage (again in the
Resolution, from 1776) is to explore the Pacific
coast of north America. He sails through the
Bering Strait as far as the pack ice of the north
pole. On his outward journey he discovers the
Hawaiian group of islands, and here - wintering
inHawaii itself - he is killed in a skirmish with
natives. He has spent all but two of the past ten
years at sea, making an unprecedented
contribution to knowledge of the Antarctic seas
and the Pacific.
The challenge of Africa: from 1788
- The interiors of the other three continents remain
largely a mystery. North America will soon have
heroic tales of exploration (particularly that
of Lewis and Clark in 1804-6) and Australia's
fearsome outback will claim tragic victims (such
as Burke and Wills). But it is the ancient continent
of Africa which now most fires the imagination of
explorers, particularly in Britain.
- The mouths of Africa's great rivers - the Nile,
the Niger, the Congo, the Zambezi - are familiar to
European traders. And there are reliable reports of
great stretches of inland river. But no one has any
idea how it all joins up. Where do the inland rivers
reach the sea? Where do the estuary waters
come from? These questions tantalize explorers
from the late 18th century to the heady days
of Livingstone, Burton and Speke
Advances in surveying
- make it possible to calculate with accuracy the
height of mountains and later even the depth of
oceans. Places of the same altitude can be
plotted, and recorded in the form of contour lines.
By the late 20th century satellites add a new
dimension. Powerful lenses in orbit above the
earth record the tiniest details on the planet's
surface, plotting even the changing patterns of
weather or vegetation.

Improvements in colour printing make it

increasingly possible to publish this wealth of
information in complex form. And digital
technology brings an added flexibility in the use of
maps on computer screens

Prepared by: Ms. G.S (EdSc143)