How Cartography Has Evolved Over Time. Cartography has advanced and will continue to progress for thousands of years. Mapmaking started by being made by hand and only including the smallest details, to be carried out by computers and including the tiniest of details. Many have endorsed and will contribute to mapmaking until the end of time. Since the beginning, people have been using maps to assist communicate, navigate, and simplify their lives; humans today, are no diverse. Maps get more advanced every day as scientists proceed to further their knowledge in technology and surroundings.
Cartography has evolved drastically since the beginning of time. The first humans made maps on cave walls with stone. Around 800 B.C., Mediterranean sailors and traders made maps of rock formations, islands, and ocean currents. Many scholars from varied places made considerable advancements in mapmaking by analyzing each other's work. Thales, a scholar, used simple geometric principals for measuring land. Anaximander, Thales' student made the theory where Earth was a cylinder. His theory was soon to be clarified wrong by Aristotle, who proved the Earth to be spherical. Aristotle's theory further pressed Eratosthenes to figure out the circumference of the Earth; by using his previous knowledge he also produced one of Earth's first accurate maps.
The Romans used merchants and soldiers' knowledge of Europe, northern Africa,and western Asia to further collect more factual maps. During the dark ages of European history, cartography belonged downhill, instead of factual maps, they became additional based on religion and belief. In China and parts of the Middle-East nevertheless, cartography was being advanced by men who picked up where Ptolemy left off and kept on to improve maps. Maps became interesting to Europeans again in the Age of Exploration and Discovery; maps helped explorers cross the Atlantic Ocean, establish colonies, and start civilizations. More accurate maps were similarly generated by men such as Mercator, Ortelius, and Varenuis. To this day, scientists still use earlier accurate maps to build new maps of the world today.
In cartography, everything and everyone is attached, everybody's ideas build off each other, and without the first maps, maps would not have been able to grow and evolve with forthcoming information.
Heretofore the making of the Modern Marvels-Mapmaking video, technology has transformed, and with technological differences comes the updating of geographical tools. In the video, modern technology was on a CD-ROM and on a bulky machine that had to be plugged into a car.
In the video, the NYPD obtained a program called Comstat; Comstat is a GIS in which the NYPD can see many types of crime in one city on a multitude of layers. The NYPD still uses this technology recognizing as it is still relevant and beneficial to the field of tracking down violations in specific communities. Whereas, the technology in GPS navigation has repaired drastically; since the 90's, tracking cars has become easier considering there are more satellites and susceptible accessibility to information. GPS systems that are available to cars were much greater and bulkier than today's small portable systems. GPS systems have fit much more reliable since they first came out Americans have satellites all around the world to thank for this.
Altogether, geographic tools have changed reasonably since this video was made because of the betterment in technology and our talent to access information from all around the globe.
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