Skip to content

Comment on Zoomable, translated version of the 15th century Mappa Mundi

Comments

It's weird that it mentions the Sea of Cádiz, but not Cádiz City. Instead: Vejer ("Beger") Tarifa ("Terifa") and Gibraltar ("Zibelter"). The cities far from the coast are randomly placed. Actually, Mediterranean Sea seems mostly accurate and anything else gets deformed, more so as distance increases. See Africa.

portolan charts[0] were already common by the time this map was made, so coastal regions, especially in the mediterranean, were better documented.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portolan_chart

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.