Anaximander's world map
Mapa del mundo de Anaximandro
- Date
- c. 550 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Miletus, Aydın, Turkey
- Credited to
- Anaximander of Miletus
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Anaximander is said to have drawn the first chart of the inhabited world in the Greek world, a circular Earth ringed by ocean and split into Europe and Asia. No copy survives; it is known through later authors.
The attribution comes from Diogenes Laertius and Agathemerus, centuries later; the map does not survive and its exact form is a reconstruction. It is accepted that an early Ionian chart existed, not what it looked like.
What it led to
- Ionian mapmaking based on observation and on sailors' reports
- later corrections by Hecataeus and by Herodotus, who mocked circular maps