Maps and Navigational Charts: A Selective Timeline to 1860
for Early American Maritime History
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Date |
Cartographic Event of Note |
Example |
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2000-1500 BC |
Babylonian maps etched in stone |
Bedolina Map |
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25-250 AD |
Chinese topographical maps to scale |
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Pre-Columbian |
Marshall Islands stick maps |
Rebbelib |
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1200s |
Magnetic compass begins to be used at sea in Mediterranean |
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1290 |
Portolan maps of Mediterranean using magnetic north |
Carte Pisane |
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1300s |
Mappo mundi maps drawn in Europe |
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1410 |
Ptolemy’s Geographia available in Europe in ms. |
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1470s |
Invention of printing leads to proliferation of maps |
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1480s |
Geographia printed throughout Europe |
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1492 |
Terrestrial globe by Martin Behaim |
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1500 |
Juan de la Cosa portolan of New World; first depiction |
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1507 |
Martin Waldeseemuller World Map uses “America” as label for New World |
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1529 |
Girolamo de Verrazzano world map based of 1524 coasting of North America |
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1562 |
Diego Gutierrez map of America |
LC |
|
1569 |
Gerardus Mercator produces world map with projection in which navigational directions are straight lines by increasing latitude separations |
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1570 |
Abraham Ortelius produced first historical atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum |
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1590 |
Theodore De Bry maps of Roanoke Island region, after illustrations by John White |
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1612 |
John Smith publishes his Map of Virginia in England |
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1616 |
John Smith publishes A Description of New England in England; chart of New England waters |
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1616 |
Dutch mariner Adriaen Block produces first map of southern New England |
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1634 |
William Wood’s Map of Southern New England, from New Englands Prsopects |
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1639 |
Dutch Map of New York Harbor |
Manatus |
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1650 |
N. Sanson d’Abbeville, Map of North America |
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1664 |
Robert Dudley produces Arcano del mare, first sea atlas to use the Mercator projection throughout |
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1671 |
John Seller published The English Pilot: The Fourth Book, dealing with American waters |
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1673 |
Augustine Herrman, “Virginia and Maryland” |
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1677 |
John Foster map of New England |
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1683 |
Robartte Ryder map of Long Island |
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1685 |
Nicolas Visscher Nova Belgii, Novague Angle of Northeast coast |
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1720 |
Cyprian Southack published New England Coastal Pilot |
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1780 |
Joseph F. W. Des Barres, British navy cartographer, publishes Atlantic Neptune, maps of coastal North America |
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1792 |
Matthew Clark published The American Pilot in Boston |
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1796 |
Edmund M. Blunt published American Coast Pilot |
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1802 |
Nathaniel Bowditch publishes The New American Practical Navigator |
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1822 |
Samuel Cummings publishes The Western Navigator: Charts of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers |
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1830 |
Edmund Blunt published Blunt’s Charts of the North and South Atlantic Oceans |
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1830 |
US Navy established the Depot of Charts and Instruments |
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1851 |
Matthew F. Maury publishes a Whale Chart, marking reported sites for whale captures |
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1852 |
Maury’s Wind and Current Chart |
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1854 |
Navy Depot of Charts and Instruments becomes the US Navy Hydrographic Office |
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