Tag: old maps

• A Tolkien-style map of the whole world, drawn from real data

  

  A Tolkien-style map of the whole world, zoomable from continents to single hills: little ink peaks on the real high ground, forests of tiny trees, rippled coasts, red lettering and towns drawn as tiny houses, all generated from open data.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories, Games & other interests

  landscape, art, old maps, world maps

• The world according to the Hereford Mappa Mundi

  

  I set the largest surviving medieval map of the world beside a modern one. Its directions from Jerusalem are mostly right; its scale is not: the Holy Land is drawn 4.5 times too big, and Britain has 8% of its names.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories, Games & other interests

  history, medieval, old maps, world maps

• Ptolemy’s world, measured

  

  Ptolemy wrote the ancient world down as a table of coordinates. I matched 2,358 of his places to where they really are: shrink his longitudes by 0.72 and the map falls into place, but Scotland is still turned on its side and Sri Lanka is 15 times too big.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories, Games & other interests

  history, old maps, Romans, world maps

• The Peutinger Table: a Roman road map that squashed the world

  

  I set a Roman road map 6.75 m long beside a modern one. It squashes the world 11 times north to south, yet 53% of its road distances are within 25% of the real road, and it switches to Gallic leagues exactly where it says it does.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories, Games & other interests

  history, old maps, Romans, world maps

• Al-Idrisi’s world: the map made for Roger II of Sicily, set against a modern one

  

  In 1154 a Muslim geographer in Palermo drew the known world for the Norman king of Sicily, south at the top. I read 431 of its towns and measured it: directions right to a median 10 degrees, and Sicily drawn best and biggest of all.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories, Games & other interests

  history, medieval, old maps, world maps