Aim: Are accepted geographical divisions of the Earth right or wrong?

Do Now: Where are

you? How do you know?

I A Brief History of Cartography“A map is a graphic representation or scale model of spatial concepts.” (Miriam Webster, 1996)Are maps realistic representations of the actual world? No--never! Field measurements are subject to errors of accuracy and precision. No map can depict all physical, biological, and cultural features for even the smallest area. In these ways, all maps are estimations, generalizations, and interpretations of true geographic conditions.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…Cartography is the art and science of making maps. The oldest known maps are preserved on Babylonian clay tablets from about 2300 B.C.E.

The earliest surviving map of the world is one prepared by the Babylonians 600 years before the birth of Jesus.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…Anaximander (c. 610 – 546 BCE) is credited with having created one of the first maps of the world, which was circular in form and showed the known lands of the world grouped around the Aegean Sea at the center. This was all surrounded by the ocean.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…Born in 276 BC in Cyrene (present day Libya), Eratosthenes created several maps of the world which featured the countries of Great Britain, India and Sri Lanka. He was also the first geographer to incorporate parallels and meridians.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…In 150 CE, the mathematician, astronomer, and geographer, Ptolemy created the first map that used longitudinal and latitudinal lines.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…

Don’t forget the differences between latitude and longitude, the equator and Prime Meridian!

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…During the Medieval period, Western European maps were dominated by religious views. The T-O map was common; Jerusalem was depicted at the center and east was oriented toward the map top.

T-O Map with Jerusalem in the Center

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…Medieval Chinese world maps showed China at the center of the Earth.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…The invention of printing made maps much more widely available beginning in the 15th century. Among the most important map makers of this period was Sebastian Münster in Basel (now Switzerland). His Geographia, published in 1540, became the new global standard for maps of the world.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…Major advances in cartography took place during the Age of Exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries. Map makers showed compass lines in portolan maps.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…The first whole-world maps began to appear in the early 16th century, following voyages by Columbus and others to the New World. The first true world map is generally credited to Martin Waldseemüller in 1507. This map utilized an expanded Ptolemaic projection and was the first map to use the name America for the New World.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…Mercator Projection, invented 16th century, Belgium

+ A Mercator projection, invented by Gerardus Mercator in1569, enables a navigator to plot a straight-line course. - It distorts the size and shape of land areas.Fact: Africa is 14 times as large as Greenland.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…

The Robinson Projection shows the poles as lines rather than points and more accurately portrays high latitude lands and water to land ratio.

A Brief History of Cartography Continued…Much of the world was poorly known until the widespread use of aerial photography following WWI. Geographic information systems (GIS) emerged in the 1970-80s period.

II Our Place in the UniverseIs our place in the universe significant or

insignificant?

Our Place in the Solar System

Our Place in the Milky Way Galaxy

Our Place in our Local Cluster of Galaxies

Our Place in the Observable Universe

III Maps, Maps, and More Maps!

The Maps You Need to Know for the AP Exam

III What is Big Geography?

Big geography is geography in the context of the entire globe.

The Conventional Map of 7 Continents

A continent is defined as a large land mass surrounded by water. If that is true, then why are Europe and Asia separate continents? Should

Greenland be considered a continent instead of a large island?

The Ural Mountains as a Dividing Line?

Since the 19th century, most scholars have accepted the Ural Mountains as part of the dividing Line between “Europe” and

“Asia” as continents.

Ura

l Mts.

Another part of the dividing line:Bosporus and Dardanelles

(Straits)

EUROPE

ASIA

Here’s a highway bridge across the Bosporus. Today, you can drive

from “Asia” to “Europe” in a few minutes.

Asia + Europe = Eurasia

E U R A S I A

The dividing line between “Europe” and “Asia” is not something that is “natural.” That is, it does not exist as a fact of the natural world.

Many geographers have therefore been willing to unite the two regions as a single continent called “Eurasia.”

But is Africa separated from Eurasia by a wide ocean?No! Why not think of Eurasia and Africa together as a single

“supercontinent?” Let’s call it “Afroeurasia.”

A F R O E U R A S I A

Are theAmericasonecontinentor two?

Are the Americas a single “super continent”?

Gulf of Mexico

Caribbean Sea

One of the big geographical features of Afroeurasia is the Great Arid Zone. This is the belt of arid or semi-arid land that extends nearly across

Afroeurasia.

Great Arid Zone

Scenes in the Great Arid Zone of Afroeurasia

Extreme dryness Ahaggar Mts., Sahara Desert

Semi-aridityGrassy steppes of Mongolia

The major winds and currents of the oceans

summer

winter

Indian Ocean Monsoon Winds

Until the coming of steamships in the 19th century, sailors had to know winds and currents to have confidence that they could sail from

one place to another in an approximate amount of time. These winds

and currents follow large global patterns. It was a matter of discovering what those patterns were.

The wind cycle in the North Atlantic helped Christopher Columbus sail both ways

across the ocean.

WIND

WIND

“Mapping Crimea” by Michael Blanding, March 2014

After word came down this week that the Crimean parliament had officially voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, Western governments immediately condemned the move. But one influential institution broke ranks to recognize the peninsula’s new political status: National Geographic. Not two days after the vote, the magazine’s editors decided to update its maps of the area to show Crimea as a part of Russia—shading it as a disputed territory, similar to the way it handles Gaza and the West Bank. If Russia votes to annex Crimea, the magazine says, it will take away the shading to show the territory as a full-fledged part of the Russian Federation. “We map de facto, in other words we map the world as it is, not as people would like it to be,” the magazine’s chief geographer told U.S. News & World Report. The fact is, however, that very little about mapping is absolute. Maps always show the world as we their creators choose to interpret it—often reflecting political motivations or desired reality as much as objective geography…

“Mapping Crimea” Continued…When the Portuguese under Henry the Navigator were rounding Africa, their mapmakers spread Portuguese flags along the coastline as they went... Later, when the English were in a knockdown brawl with the French over who would control the Ohio Valley—and thus North America—they fought a war of cartography for 50 years before they fired a musket in the French and Indian War. English mapmaker Herman Moll created a 1715 map that declared nearly all of North America as belonging to England, renaming the land west of the St. Lawrence River previously known as New France as “Part of Canada.” Three years later French cartographer Guillaume De L’Isle, countered with a detailed map of the interior that splashed “La Louisiane” in giant letters across the continent, squeezing the English colonies in a tiny inset across the coast… after the English won the war in 1763, negotiators used less accurate English maps to draw new boundary lines—finally giving them victory in the war of both weapons and maps… During the Cold War, American students took for granted that the United States was located in the center of the world, with Asia split to the left and right…

“Mapping Crimea” Continued…Soviet schoolchildren, meanwhile, grew up with world maps showing Asia in the middle (dominated by the Soviet Union) with North America split in two. In the 1970s German journalist Arno Peters exposed the fraud within the world’s most common map projection, the Mercator Projection, which distorts the size of countries farther away from the equator—emphasizing the United States and Europe over developing countries in the “global south.” His own projection reversed this trend, shrinking the developed countries and emphasizing Africa and Latin America… And so it goes: India, Pakistan, and China all use different maps to define the boundaries of Jammu and Kashmir. Moroccan maps include the disputed area of Western Sahara as part of the kingdom. China uses ancient maps to assert its legitimacy over Tibet. Israelis and Palestinians refer to maps created in 1919 and 1947 as the basis to claim their own boundaries… If history is any lesson, then as the conflict in Crimea plays out in the coming weeks and months, the maps made of the region may not only reflect the reality on the ground, but also help create it.

Crimea – Disputed Territory?

HW Questions1. What is our place in the universe? (You can describe it or draw a diagram) 2. List 5 countries, a mountain range, river(s) and sea(s) if applicable for each of the following regions:a) Western Europe b) Eastern Europec) East Asia d) Southeast Asiae) Southwest Asia f) Central Asia g) South Asia h) North Africai) West Africa j) East Africak) Central Africa l) Southern Africam) Oceanian) North America & the Caribbeano) South America3. In a single paragraph, briefly describe the history of cartography.

4. What are the differences between the Mercator and Robinson projections? Which do you prefer and why?5. Why do geographers disagree as to how many continents there are on Earth? How many continents do you think there are and why? Should it even matter? Why or why not?6. In a paragraph, summarize the main points of the article “Mapping Crimea”. Do you agree or disagree with National Geographic’s decision to label Crimea as “disputed territory”?7. Must – Know Vocabulary: See the next slide!

HW Questions Continued… Must – Know Key Terms

Write definitions for the following words on index cards or in your Key Terms section of your AP binder. *This part of your HW will not be checked along with the rest of your HW, but there will be periodic “quizzes” to ensure you are doing this! Afroeurasia AnaxamanderBig Geography Bosphorus StraitCartography CrimeaEratosthenes EquatorEurasia GISGreat Arid Zone LatitudeLongitude MapMercator Projection Peters ProjectionPortolan Maps Prime MeridianPtolemy Robinson ProjectionUral Mountains