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Maps have been known to have existed for more than 8000 years from cave paintings in Babylon, Greece and Asia. The earliest maps are of the heavens not of the Earth. Babylonian maps were drawn on clay tablets and is one of the earliest representations, symbolic not literal. The depiction of the earth by Homer was a flat circular disk and in a way was limited to what could be seen from a mountain top. Pythagoras (560 - 480 BC) speculated on a spherical notion of the earth. Heroditus produced a more realistic map (440BC) of the Mediterranean and the surrounding lands, but knowledge was limited. The rise of the Roman Empire advanced map making techniques. In the mean time China had produced maps in the 4th Century BC. Arab maps were important in the 10th Century. Further exploration of the world added more details.

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7y ago

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