完成图表 · 2023 · 地图发展史（The History of Maps）

Maps mark seas, countries, cities and our homes, and guide us through the world. To know them better, let's take a look at how maps have changed over the centuries.

Many ancient countries used maps. One of the first is thought to have been drawn on the wall in Lascaux, France, around 16,500 years ago. Hidden among the drawings of birds and bulls is a map of the stars.

The Babylonian Map of the World is the oldest known earthly map, which shows Babylon and its neighboring towns on the stone.

Claudius Ptolemy made maps go global. Born in Egypt around 100 AD, he was the first person to try to make a world map. With the help of math, Ptolemy marked around 10,000 locations from Britain to Asia and Africa.

Perhaps the most commonly used world map is the Mercator Projection. It was introduced in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator. An important part of maps is the imaginary lines of longitude, latitude and the equator.

Mercator took the globe and made it flat, but to do this he had to make the areas further north and south larger, while the areas nearer the middle stay about the right size. The reason for this is that the Earth is like a ball, but a map is flat. It is easy to find places, but some people said it was unfair because places including Canada, the UK and Europe appeared much bigger than they really were.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, modern technology allowed map makers to produce maps showing locations exactly.

Today, many people view maps on their phones. Researchers are working to map the floor of the oceans and to locate every tree on Earth. Scientists are also trying to map the past by using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This invention will collect light from stars and may find the secrets about the beginning of the universe.