It is an inherent part of human nature to seek knowledge about the world around us. As knowledge of the world changed over time, so did the depiction of the world on maps. With such exploration tools as Google Earth, the breadth of our knowledge of the world around us grew exponentially.
The process of digital mapping of the world first took root with the invention of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Complete knowledge of the world is still subject to relativity, which leaves room for the mapmaker's interpretation. The idea of placing your native country at the center of the world is not new—it.
Each of the maps I analyze is an image of the world and a set of beliefs about the world. The shape of the world has been defined and drawn by others in the past.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE—EXPLORING MAPS
The representation and means of filling "unknown space" changed over time as knowledge of the world developed. In On the Map: A Mind Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks, Simon Garfield writes: "Blanks on maps make it appear as if vital information is absent. Seeing world maps as political mouthpieces rather than unbiased, scientifically accurate depictions of the Earth is a fairly new concept.
Maps are an influential tool that shapes cultural representations of the world and can play a variety of roles, from competition to trickery. Through my analysis of Google Earth, I analyze the representation of 'unknown' social issues in non-Western parts of the world through maps. Besides, who's to say that Google Earth-style images of the world aren't inherently biased like historical maps.
As mentioned in On the Map, Google Earth represents a new form of cartography called "Me-Mapping" that "places the user at the immediate center of everything" (Garfield, 429). In A History of the World in 12 Maps, Jerry Brotton makes the point that Google Earth is universally participatory. There simply is no such thing as an accurate map of the world and there never will be.
The representation of the world through Google Earth is a valuable topic to explore, especially given its relevance today.
METHODS—THE ANALYSIS OF MAPS
In order to make value judgments about the unknown, it is essential to understand the known world at the time the map was created. As a member of the Lazarus Project Group, I digitally recorded the Vercelli Mappamundi and saw the document first hand. Capello, I1 mappamondo medioevale di VerceIli and draw from this work to understand the placement and meaning of the figures shown on the map.
I take a critical look at our high-resolution multispectral images of the Vercelli mappamundi to examine areas that have not yet been explored. I scrutinize the images and text on the map to gain insight into cultural representations of the world in thirteenth-century Italy. These documents deepen the debate about the cultural implications of the Vercelli map.
Chester C.1200-1600 by Catherine Clarke to discuss the unknown areas on the Vercelli map and how these areas were mapped in a similar way in other medieval interpretations of the world. I also draw on Brotton's A History of the World in 12 Maps and Garfield's On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of How the World Looks to more adequately and substantively discuss Vercelli's map as a medieval map. I then draw a conclusion on how the representation of the unknown changed during the medieval period before going on to discuss Mercator's map.
Analysis of the Mercator map is based primarily on secondary sources with the exception of the primary source of the map itself. The ways in which Mercator's map influenced cultural conceptions of the world are explored in some of the secondary sources I refer to, including John Noble Wilford's The Mapmakers. Jerry Brotton's A History of the World in 12 Maps and William Washburn's Representation of Unknown Lands in 14th, 15th, and 16th Century Cartography.
The representation of unknown lands in the cartography of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries specifically concerns the areas of Mercator's map that were unknown at the time and how they were represented. I draw on some secondary sources such as Simon Garfield's On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks, Jerry Brotton's History of the World in 12 Maps, and Joshua Ewalt. I also show how areas of the unknown are represented in this digitally created representation of the world.
ANALYSIS—WHAT MAPS HAVE TO SAY
Political implications are also seen in the presentation of the western areas of the map. The Vercelli mappamundi is also testimony to the church's overwhelming influence on society in the Middle Ages. Stories from Marco Polo and other explorers of the East added significant content to the Asia and Middle East areas of the map.
Other areas that remained unknown at the time of the Catalan Atlas were shown using iconography. Many of the less credible myths, such as people living on raw fish, drinking sea water, and wearing no clothes, were placed in the Far East in the Catalan Atlas (Grosjean, 92). The placement of mythical people and places in the unknown areas of the world is immortalized in the Catalan Atlas.
The Eurocentric worldview also persists, serving to re-fix the self-mapping aspect of the Catalan Atlas. With the absence of boundaries, the figures shown on the map take on a new meaning, acting as delineating features of the landscape. Some areas are either misinterpreted or wrongly located in the Catalan Atlas, showing the limitations of the cartographer's knowledge of these areas.
The intent of the Mercator map was drastically different from that of the Vercelli map and the Catalan Atlas. The limitations of the Mercator map, as noted above, served to shape societal views of the world. Mercator's map was never intended to provide an accurate picture of the world for educational purposes.
Google Earth is particularly representative of modern culture and also serves to shape cultural perceptions of the world. No issues of violence are depicted in the United States or in other areas of the Western world. Unknown space is difficult to identify on Google Earth due to the site's claim that all areas of the world are mapped.
With the majority of the world mapped, however, there are still areas on Google Earth that are “prohibited” from being viewed. Clearly there are still areas of the world that are considered unknown when it comes to viewing Google Earth.
CONCLUSION—WHERE DO WE STAND?
With new knowledge from explorers such as Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville and the early missionaries, Cathay and Manzi, the Catalan Atlas depicts the most geographically accurate view of world knowledge in the 14th century (Lester, 2009, 98). The Catalan atlas contains a wealth of iconography that relates back to its categorization as a medieval map, but it also contains information from explorers' accounts of the Near East and Asia, leaving only the unexplored regions of the Far East full of elaborate, space-filling imagery. The map is centered on Jerusalem, which harkens back to the religious dominance of the period.
The Mercator map, representing the Renaissance period, exhibits a transition in the use of maps as a navigational tool. The fact that Europe is larger and more prominent than the other areas on the map, while not a hindrance to the original purpose of the map, perpetuates power structures when used as a tool to teach children about their place in the world and their relationship to the rest of the world. With the world becoming increasingly digitized, maps have become almost exclusively focused on being the most accurate navigational tools possible.
Google Earth seeks to map the entirety of the world, showing every business, park and landform known to mankind. Therefore, who is to say that this view of the world he is presenting is the most. Google is a corporation and thus may have incentives to present the world in a certain way.
Corporate advertisers have become the equivalent of card commissioners with the ability to manipulate the way the world is presented. Therefore, Google Earth is still as. inherently biased as each of the other maps presented, and unknown areas still exist that are revealed from the public. By analyzing maps throughout history, one can come to the conclusion that all maps are first subject to the powers of the cartographer and the commissioner who creates them.
Maps are ultimately humanity's way of depicting and making sense of the world - biases will always be present. The fourth part of the world: the race to the ends of the earth, and the epic story of the map that gave America its name. Define Mappaemundi.” In The Hereford World Map: Medieval World Maps and Their Context, edited by P.D.A.
