Cartography or mapmaking (in Greek chartis = map and graphein = write) has been an integral part of the human story for a long time (maybe 8,000 years - nobody knows exactly, but longer than written words). mapping represented a significant step forward in the intellectual development of human beings and it serves as a record of the advancing knowledge of the human race.

Earliest known maps
Maps in Ancient Babylonia were made using accurate surveying techniques.
In contrast, the Babylonian World Map -- the earliest surviving map of the world (c. 600BCE) -- is a symbolic, not literal representation. It omits peoples such as the Persians and Egyptians, who were well known to the Babylonians. The area shown is depicted as a circular shape surrounded by water, which fits the religious image of the world in which the Babylonians believed.
Maps were quite rare in ancient Egypt; however those that have survived show an emphasis on geometry and surveying techniques, perhaps stimulated by the need to re-establish the exact boundaries of properties after the annual Nile floods. The Turin Papyrus, dated c. 1300 BCE, shows the mountains east of the Nile where gold and silver were mined, along with the location of the miners' shelters, wells, and the road network that linked the region with the mainland. Its originality can be seen in the map's inscriptions, its precise orientation and the use of colour.

Ancient Near East

Ancient Greece
In reviewing the literature of early geography and early conceptions of the earth, all sources lead to Homer, who is considered by many (Strabo, Kish and Dilke) as the founding father of Geography. Regardless of the doubts about Homer's existence, one thing is certain: he never was a mapmaker. The enclosed map, which represents the conjectural view of the Homeric world was never created by him. It is an imaginary reconstruction of the world as Homer described it in his two poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. It is worth mentioning that each of these writings involves strong geographic symbolism. They can be seen as descriptive pictures of life and warfare in the Bronze Age and the illustrated plans of actual journeys. Thus, each one develops a philosophical view of the world, which makes it possible to show this information in the form of a map.
The depiction of the earth as it was accepted by the early Greeks and conceived by Homer represents a circular flat disk surrounded by a constantly moving stream of Ocean (Brown, 22). An idea which would be suggested by the appearance of the horizon -- as it is seen from a mountaintop or from a seacoast. Homer's knowledge of the Earth was very limited. He and his Greek contemporaries knew very little of the Earth beyond Egypt -- as far as the Libyan desert, the south-west coast of Asia Minor and the north side of the Greek homeland. Furthermore, the coast of the Black Sea was only known through myths and legends that circulated during his time. In his poems there is no mention of Europe and Asia as geographical concepts (Thompson, 21), and no mention of the Phoenicians either (Thompson, 40). This seams strange if we recall that the origin of the name Oceanus -- a term used by Homer in his poems -- belonged to the Phoenicians (Thomson, 27). That is why the big part of Homer's world that is portrayed on this map represents lands that border on the Aegean Sea. It is worth noting that even through Greeks believed that they were in the middle of the earth, they also thought that the edges of the world's disk were inhabited by savage, monstrous barbarians and strange animals and monsters, Homer's Odyssey mentions a great many of them.
Additional written statements about ancient geography can be found in Hesiod's poems, written probably during the eighth century BCE (Kirsh, 1). Through the lyrics of Works and Days and Theogony he shows to his contemporaries some definite geographical knowledge. He introduces the names of such rivers as Neil, Ister (Danube), the shores of the Bosporus and the Euxine (Black Sea), the coast of Gaul, the island of Sicily, and a few other regions and rivers (Keane, 6-7). His advanced geographical knowledge had not only predated Greek colonial expansions but also was used in the earliest Greek world maps, produced by the first Greek mapmakers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus.

Early Greek Literature
In classical antiquity, maps were drawn by Anaximander, Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus, Eratosthenes, and Ptolemy using both explorers' observations and a mathematical approach.
The first steps in the development of intellectual thought in ancient Greece belonged to Ionians from their well-known city of Miletus in Asia Minor. Miletus was favourably placed to absorb aspects of Babylonian knowledge and to profit from the expanding commerce of the Mediterranean. The earliest ancient Greek who is said to have constructed a map of the world is Anaximander of Miletus (c. 611 – 546 BCE), pupil of Thales. He believed that the earth was a cylindrical form , like a stone pillar and suspended in space.
Herodotus (484-424 BCE)
The way in which the geographical knowledge of the Greeks advanced from the previous assumptions of the earth's shape was through Herodotus conceptual view of the world. This map also did not survive and many have speculated that it was never produced. Nevertheless the map is well documented by the author -- Herodotus -- in his work Geographica, which has survived. Below is a reconstruction of his map, that he presumably produced in 440 BCE.
Herodotus traveled very extensively, collecting information and documenting his findings in his books on Europe, Asia and Libya. He also combined his knowledge with what he learned from the people he met. Herodotus rejected the prevailing view of most 5th century maps that the earth is a circular plate surrounded by Ocean. In his map he describes the earth as an irregular shape with oceans surrounding only Asia and Africa. He introduces names such as Atlantic Sea and Erythrean Sea. He also divided the world into three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. He depicted the boundary of Europe as the line from the Pillars of Hercules through the Bosporus and the area between Caspian Sea and Indus River. And he regarded the Nile as the limit between Asia and Africa. He speculated that the extent of Europe was much greater than was assumed at the time and left Europe's shape to be determined by future research. In the case of Africa, he believed that except for the small stretch of land in the vicinity of Suez, the continent was in fact surrounded by water. However, he definitely disagreed with his predecessors and contemporaries about its presumed circular shape. He based his theory on the story of Pharaoh Necho II, the ruler of Egypt between 609 and 594 BCE, who had sent Phoenicians to circumnavigate Africa. Apparently, it took them three years, but they certainly did prove his idea. As with Europe, this great philosopher left future researchers determine Africa's shape. As far the Neil River, he speculated that it started as far west as the Ister River in Europe, and cut Africa through the middle. He was the first philosopher to assume that the Caspian Sea was separated from other seas and he recognised northern Scythia as one of the coldest inhabited lands in the world. He was also the first mapmaker to depict other geographical features on a map such as the Persian 'Royal Road' that he fully documented -- with its royal stations and superb inns -- in his work Geographica. However, like many other early maps in antiquity, Herodotus's map also has no scale. Herodotus also made similar mistakes to his predecessors. He accepted a clear distinction between the civilized Greeks in the centre of the earth and the barbarians on the world's edges. In his Histories we can see very clearly that the world becomes stranger and stranger when one travels away from Greece, until one has reached the ends of the earth, where humans behave like savages. Herodotus wrote the Histories in the mid-400's B.C. Although, his work was dedicated to the story of the Greeks' long struggle with the Persian Empire, Herodotus also included everything he knew about the geography, history, and peoples of the world. Thus, his works provide a detailed picture of the known world of the 5th century BCE.

Early Greek maps
Whereas a number of previous Greek philosophers assumed the earth to be spherical, Aristotle (384 – 322BCE) is the one to be credited with proving the earth's sphericity. Those arguments can be summarized as follows:
It is unclear if he ever produced a map of the world according to his specifications, but if he did we have yet to find it.
A vital contribution to mapping the reality of the world came with a scientific estimate of the circumference of the earth. This event has been described as the first scientific attempt to give geographical studies a mathematical basis. The man credited for this achievement was Eratosthenes (275-195 BCE). As described by George Sarton, historian of science, "there was among them [Eratosthenes's contemporaries] a man of genius but as he was working in a new field they were too stupid to recognize him" (Noble, 27). His work including On the Measurement of the Earth and Geographica has only survived in the writings of later philosophers such as Cleomedes and Strabo. He was a devoted geographer who set out to reform and perfect the map of the world. Eratosthenes argued that accurate mapping, even if in two dimensions only, depends upon the establishment of an accurate linear measurements. He was able to calculate the circumference of the Earth within 0.5 percent accuracy by calculating the heights of shadows on different parts of the earth at a given time. The first in Alexandria, the other further up the Nile. He had the distance between the two shadows calculated and then their height. From this he determined the difference in angle between the two points and calculated how large a circle would be made by adding in the rest of the degrees to 360. His great achievement in the field of cartography was the use of new techniques called (A) meridian -- his imaginary north/south line -- and (B) parallel -- his imaginary west/east line.
Ptolemy's eight-book atlas Geographia is a prototype of modern mapping and GIS. It included an index of place-names, with the latitude and longitude of each place to guide the search, scale, conventional signs with legends, and the practice of orienting maps so that North is at the top and East to the right of the map -- a universal custom today.
But for all his important innovations Ptolemy was not infallible. His most important error was a miscalculation of the circumference of the earth. He believed that Eurasia covered 180° of the globe, which convinced Christopher Columbus to sail across the Atlantic to look for a simpler and faster way to travel to India. Had Columbus known that the true figure was much greater, it is conceivable that he would never have set out on his momentous voyage.

The lunar eclipse is always circular.
Ships seem to sink as they move away from view and pass the horizon.
Some stars can only be seen from certain parts of the Earth. Spherical Earth and Meridians
Further information: Muslim geography
In the Middle Ages, Muslim scholars continued and advanced on the mapmaking traditions of earlier cultures. Most used Ptolemy's methods; but they also took advantage of what explorers and merchants learned in their travels across the Muslim world, from Spain to India to Africa, and beyond in trade relationships with China, and Russia.
Ibn-Battutah (1304-1368?) wrote "Rihlah" (Travels) based on three decades of journeys, covering more than 120,000 km through northern Africa, southern Europe, and much of Asia.

Islamic Mapmaking
In China, the earliest known geographical Chinese writing dates back to the 5th century BC, during the beginning of the Warring States (481 BC-221 BC).

China
Phei Hsiu (Pei Xiu) the "father of Chinese cartography" produced an elaborate map of the country.
Surviving Chinese maps of the world date from the Song dynasty (960-1279). The map carved in stone, shows 500 settlements and a dozen rivers in China, and extends as far as Korea and India. On the reverse, a copy of a more ancient map uses grid coordinates in a scale of 1:1,500,000 and shows the coastline of China with great accuracy.
The Korean made Kangnido based on two Chinese maps, which describes the Old World.

Chinese maps
The Polynesian peoples who explored and settled the Pacific islands in the first two millenniums AD used maps to navigate across large distances. A surviving map from the Marshall Islands uses sticks tied in a grid with palm strips representing wave and wind patterns, with shells attached to show the location of islands.

Pacific Islands
Medieval maps in Europe were mainly symbolic in form along the lines of the much earlier Babylonian World Map. Known as Mappa Mundi (cloth of the world) these maps were circular or symmetrical cosmological diagrams representing the earth's single land mass as disk-shaped and surrounded by ocean.
Roger Bacon's investigations of map projections and the appearance of portolano and then portolan charts for plying the European trade routes were rare innovations of the period.
In the Renaissance, with the rediscovery of classical works, maps became more like surveys once again, while the discovery of the Americas by Europeans and the subsequent effort to control and divide those lands revived interest in scientific mapping methods. Peter Whitfield, the author of several books on the history of maps, credits European mapmaking as a factor in the global spread of western power: "Men in Seville, Amsterdam or London had access to knowledge of America, Brazil, or India, while the native peoples knew only their own immediate environment" (Whitfield).

Early European maps

15th century: The monk Nicholas Germanus added the first new maps to Ptolemy's Geographica.<fef>http://www.phil.uni-passau.de/histhw/tutcarto/english/index-frames-en.html</ref>
1485: Portuguese cartographer Pedro Reinel made the oldest known signed Portuguese nautical chart.
1492: German merchant Martin Behaim (1459 - 1507) made the oldest surviving terrestrial globe, but it lacked the Americas.
1715: Herman Moll published the Beaver Map, one of the most famous early maps of North America, which he copied from a 1698 work by Nicolas de Fer
1763-1767: Captain James Cook mapped Newfoundland. Notable cartographers of the Age of Exploration
The Greenwich prime meridian became the international standard reference for cartographers in 1884.
In the United States in the 17th and 18th centuries, explorers mapped trails and army engineers surveyed government lands. Two agencies were established to provide detailed, large-scale mapping. They are now known as the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Ocean Survey.
During the 1900's, maps became more abundant due to improvements in printing and photography that made production cheaper and easier. Airplanes made it possible to photograph large areas at a time. Also, since the mid-1900's, the use of computers in map-making has helped to store, sort, and arrange data for mapping in order to create map projections.