Within the collective imagination of the sixteenth century, enormous man-eating monsters commanded the oceans. Nowhere is this mashup of science and folklore depicted more vividly than on the 1539 Carta Marina.
The Map Myths Blog Posts
When the discovery of the Vinland Map was announced to the world in 1965, it was presented as a genuine 15th-century mappa mundi, a world map that contained a truly…
The captivating dream of El Dorado, a mythical city of gold somewhere in the jungles of South America, ignited the imaginations and greed of European explorers for centuries. Intertwined with this legend was Lake Parime, the vast, inland sea upon which the golden city was believed to sit.
For centuries, Africa’s third-longest waterway appeared on European maps flowing in directions counter to reality. This is perhaps not surprising given that no-one from Europe had actually ever seen the Niger River. It would not be until the 1830s, following several perilous expeditions into the heart of West Africa featuring drownings, dysentery, and kidnapping, that Europeans would map its true course.
Despite the 20th-century trajectory towards ever-greater precision, mapping mistakes continue to endure through to the present day. Yet, these modern cartographic phantoms have also had real-world consequences, ranging from harmless reprints to executive firings and even murder.
The US Polaris Expedition was beset by dissent, sabotage, and even accusations of murder of its leader. Amidst this turmoil, a new cartographic myth emerged: President Land.
Geographical facts intertwine with centuries-old myths in Mercator’s 1595 map of the Arctic. Despite its fantastical elements, it also represented a significant advancement for its era.
Two hundred years ago, an American captain reported phantom islands and coastlines that confused maps for decades. Did he even possibly fake his own death?
Buried within an ancient Chinese text lies the tale of an epic voyage in the 5th century AD. Was a Buddhist missionary really the first to put America on the map?
Successive expeditions to uncharted areas of northeast Greenland tragically led to the deaths of one group of Danes, and another pair of explorers left abandoned and presumed dead.
While names such as Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton are synonymous with Antarctic exploration, relatively little is known about the French geographer who first theorised on the icy nature of this…
As a notorious privateer, Martin Frobisher had spent much of his early life plundering French and Spanish ships, even spending time in jail for his exploits. Yet he held a…