World Map (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what the world map is, its history and what forms it can take. Also, what are projections, parallels and meridians.

What is the world map?

The world map (a word inherited from medieval Latin world mapthat is, “map of the world”) It is a cartographic representation of the entire Earth's surface that is, it is a map of the entire world.

Depending on its shape, a world map can be called in two ways:

Terrestrial globe or globe when the representation has a spherical shape and tries to reproduce the three-dimensional appearance of the planet.
Earth planisphere when it reproduces to scale the projection of the terrestrial sphere in a two-dimensional plane, that is, in two dimensions.

World maps are a very old tool, which It is prepared with the purpose of serving as a guide in matters of geography and politics which can serve as a basis for the preparation of other maps, such as the political map (which shows the divisions of the countries), the physical map (which shows the geographical features) and the topographic map (which shows the contour lines of the relief) , among many other specialized uses.

World maps not only show the representation of the earth's surface (continents, islands and oceans), but also the symbols and signs used geographically to organize, sectorize and imaginatively structure the planet. Thus, border lines, rivers and height lines are also usually drawn, in addition to parallels and meridians, the equator, etc. It is also normal to highlight the location of cities and capitals, as well as other elements that may be of particular interest.

History of the world map

world map history — The exploration of Asia and Africa introduced new challenges when imagining the world.

From very early times, humanity knew the usefulness and value of maps, and many ancient civilizations wanted to draw the most accurate and exhaustive maps of the world they knew. The first attempts at a world map found date back to around 2500 BC. c and consist of strokes on Babylonian clay tablets, but were limited to the representation of the valley of the Euphrates River.

The ancient Greeks, for their part, knew about the sphericity of the Earth and wanted to draw some type of total map. The main pupil of Thales of Miletus, the geographer and philosopher, particularly dedicated himself to this task. Anaximander of Miletus (c. 610-546 BC), creator of the first known map of the world whose appearance is unknown but in which the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Euphrates and Phasis rivers, and three large continents were represented: Europe, Asia and Libya, surrounded by a belt of water called the Ocean.

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This first world map would serve as the basis for a much more advanced version, created by the Greek geographer and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100-170 AD), in which he not only represented numerous rivers of the three continents known to Anaximander, but rather incorporated imaginary longitudinal and latitudinal lines for the first time.

Ptolemy's world map was possibly part of his work Geographywritten around 150 AD. C., but it is not preserved today either. Only the reconstructions made more than 1,000 years later by Byzantine monks led by the grammarian and theologian Maximus Planudes (c. 1260-c. 1305) survive. However, the creation of world maps was a very common activity during the European Middle Ages.

The subsequent exploration of Asia and Africa, as well as the discovery of America, incorporated new challenges when it came to imagining the world, which until then had been reduced to the Mediterranean Sea and its surrounding areas, always drawn in the form of a “T in O.” ”, that is, in the circle of the world three continents separated by the Mediterranean were distinguished, forming a “T” of separation between them. These were maps with little interest in geographical accuracy, which rather reflected theological and political ideas.

The one created by the Portuguese cartographer Diego Ribero in 1527 is taken as the first “scientific” world map in which America and Oceania already appeared, thanks to the information of explorers such as Ferdinand Magellan, Juan Sebastián Elcano and Esteban Gómez. But it would not be until the 18th century that new geographic projection techniques allowed the emergence of maps more similar to the current ones, which, thanks to the invention of airplanes and photography in the coming centuries, acquired the current accuracy.

Parallels and meridians

World maps have two main types of imaginary lines, which cross the world longitudinally and latitudinally thus drawing a grid, useful for establishing a global system of geographic coordinates that allows you to orient yourself anywhere on the Earth's surface. These imaginary lines are:

The meridians. If we draw a semicircle that runs along the surface of the planet from the North Pole to the South Pole, we will be tracing a meridian. That is, these are vertical lines that divide the planet into 360 spaces (“degrees”) and that allow any point on its surface to be located longitudinally. That is, we can know the length of any portion of the planetary surface by comparing the meridians where it begins and where it ends.

Cartographic projections

Since the Earth is not completely spherical, nor does it really have an up and down, the representations that we see of it every day are not completely exact in their proportions, but rather They use scales and projection procedures to construct a credible image that is, credible, useful, of the planet. These procedures are known as geographic projectionsand throughout history there have been many of them and very different from each other.

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The best known of these projections, and The most used today is the Mercator projection created by the Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594) in 1569. It uses a cylinder tangent to the equator of the planet as a pattern to represent the surface, which produces a necessary distortion in the length of the parallels especially as they approach the poles.

This world map model has been criticized for being Eurocentric and making the southern hemisphere invisible, and there are numerous proposals for alternative projections, such as the one proposed by the Scottish clergyman James Gall (1808-1895) in 1855, but made more widely known by the cartographer German Arno Peters (1916-2002).

world map images

tectonic muni map — World map with tectonic plates.

political world map — Political world map.

political city map — Political world map with countries and cities.

relief world map — World map with continental and oceanic geographical features.

robinson world map — World map in Robinson projection.

world map mollweide — World map in Mollweide projection.

Continents of the world

The six continents of the planet appear on the world map:

Africa. It is located south of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, between the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
Antarctica. Located around the geographic South Pole, it is the least populated and coldest continent in the world.
America. It is located west of Europe and Africa, separated from them by the Atlantic Ocean and also from Asia by the Pacific Ocean.
Asia. It is located to the east of the European continent, with which it forms the same territorial mass, but separated from it culturally and politically by the Ural mountain range. It is separated from America by the Pacific Ocean and from Oceania by the Indian Ocean.
Europe. It is located west of Asia, east of America and North Africa.
Oceania. It is located in southeastern America and southern Asia, surrounded by the Pacific and Indian oceans.

world oceans

The five oceans of the planet appear on the world map:

Antarctic Glacial Ocean. It is located on the circumference of the South Pole, surrounding Antarctica.
Atlantic Ocean. It is located between America and Europe to the north and America and Africa to the south.
Arctic Ocean. It is located on the circumference of the North Pole.
Indian Ocean. It is located south of the Indian subcontinent, between Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Pacific Ocean. It is located between America and Asia to the north and America and Oceania to the south.