Map

The oldest possible evidence of humanity creating visual depictions of spatial relationships comes from the Lascaux caves in southwestern France, where prehistoric man may have painted images of the stars in the night sky. However it was not until about 2300 BCE, in ancient Babylon, that clear evidence of what we would easily recognize as a map emerged. Inscribed on clay tablets, Babylonian maps show natural terrain features and cities, as well as cuneiform labels for locations and even directions.

In the first millennium BCE, cartography - the art and practice of mapmaking - advanced considerably in ancient Greece and Rome. The Chinese developed maps as early as the fourth century BCE, and ever since their introduction, humanity has improved on them.

A map is a visual representation of the spatial relationships between features or factors. Usually drawn to scale, maps can represent land features, bodies of water, political boundaries, populations, elevations, cultural differences and a host of other kinds of information. Maps are often made from the perspective of someone looking down, which allows for two-dimensional representations of three dimensional spaces. They are often made on flat surfaces such as pieces of walls or paper, though three-dimensional maps, such as globs, are also common as are flat projections of non-flat areas, such as maps of the world.

Maps are images and as images they transcend written and verbal language. They are a form of communication that shares information across different cultures and regions, conveying knowledge instantaneously through the medium of symbols. Even if a map is grossly unrealistic and in no way looks or feels like the features it purports to represent, it allows human to visualize what they might otherwise never be in a position to see in person.