Cartography is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
Martin Waldseemüller was a German cartographer and humanist scholar. Sometimes known by the Latinized form of his name, Hylacomylus, his work was influential among contemporary cartographers. His collaborator Matthias Ringmann and he are credited with the first recorded usage of the word America to name a portion of the New World in honour of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci in a world map they delineated in 1507. Waldseemüller was also the first to map South America as a continent separate from Asia, the first to produce a printed globe, and the first to create a printed wall map of Europe. A set of his maps printed as an appendix to the 1513 edition of Ptolemy's Geography is considered to be the first example of a modern atlas.
The Spanish colonization of the Americas began in 1493 on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola after the initial 1492 voyage of Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus under license from Queen Isabella I of Castile. These overseas territories of the Spanish Empire were under the jurisdiction of Crown of Castile until the last territory was lost in 1898. Spaniards saw the dense populations of indigenous peoples as an important economic resource and the territory claimed as potentially producing great wealth for individual Spaniards and the crown. Religion played an important role in the Spanish conquest and incorporation of indigenous peoples, bringing them into the Catholic Church peacefully or by force. The crown created civil and religious structures to administer the vast territory. Spanish men and women settled in greatest numbers where there were dense indigenous populations and the existence of valuable resources for extraction.
The Casa de Contratación or Casa de la Contratación de las Indias was established by the Crown of Castile, in 1503 in the port of Seville as a crown agency for the Spanish Empire. It functioned until 1790, when it was abolished in a government reorganization.
The earliest known world maps date to classical antiquity, the oldest examples of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE still based on the flat Earth paradigm. World maps assuming a spherical Earth first appear in the Hellenistic period. The developments of Greek geography during this time, notably by Eratosthenes and Posidonius culminated in the Roman era, with Ptolemy's world map, which would remain authoritative throughout the Middle Ages. Since Ptolemy, knowledge of the approximate size of the Earth allowed cartographers to estimate the extent of their geographical knowledge, and to indicate parts of the planet known to exist but not yet explored as terra incognita.
The Council of the Indies, officially the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies, was the most important administrative organ of the Spanish Empire for the Americas and those territories it governed, such as the Spanish East Indies. The crown held absolute power over the Indies and the Council of the Indies was the administrative and advisory body for those overseas realms. It was established in 1524 by Charles V to administer "the Indies", Spain's name for its territories. Such an administrative entity, on the conciliar model of the Council of Castile, was created following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521, which demonstrated the importance of the Americas. Originally an itinerary council that followed Charles V, it was subsequently established as an autonomous body with legislative, executive and judicial functions by Philip II of Spain and placed in Madrid in 1561.
The Waldseemüller map or Universalis Cosmographia is a printed wall map of the world by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the name "America". The name America is placed on South America on the main map. As explained in Cosmographiae Introductio, the name was bestowed in honor of the Italian Amerigo Vespucci.
Diogo Ribeiro was a Portuguese cartographer and explorer who worked most of his life in Spain, where he was known as Diego Ribero. He worked on the official maps of the Padrón Real from 1518 to 1532. He also made navigation instruments, including astrolabes and quadrants.
Aztec codices are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the pre-Columbian Aztec, and their Nahuatl-speaking descendants during the colonial period in Mexico.
The history of cartography refers to the development and consequences of cartography, or mapmaking technology, throughout human history. Maps have been one of the most important human inventions for millennia, allowing humans to explain and navigate their way through the world.
The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are known to have been literate societies, who produced a number of Mesoamerican writing systems of varying degrees of complexity and completeness. Mesoamerican writing systems arose independently from other writing systems in the world, and their development represents one of the very few such origins in the history of writing.
The Padrón Real, known after 2 August 1527 as the Padrón General, was the official and secret Spanish master map used as a template for the maps present on all Spanish ships during the 16th century. It was kept in Seville, Spain by the Casa de Contratación. Ship pilots were required to use a copy of the official government chart, or risk the penalty of a 50 doblas fine. The map probably included a large-scale chart that hung on the wall of the old Alcázar of Seville. Well-known official cartographers and pilots who contributed to and used the map included Amerigo Vespucci, Diogo Ribeiro, Sebastian Cabot, Alonzo de Santa Cruz, and Juan Lopez de Velasco.
Quiabelagayo is a Zapotec name associated particularly with the Oaxacan Valley pre-Columbian site of Dainzu. In Zapotec mythology and religion, Quiabelagayo has been interpreted by some researchers such as Alfonso Caso and Ignacio Bernal as a local Oaxacan equivalent of the central Mexican deity Macuilxochitl, or "Five Flower".
The map of Juan de la Cosa is a world map that includes the earliest known representation of the New World and the first depiction of the equator and the Tropic of Cancer on a nautical chart. The map is attributed to the Castilian navigator and cartographer, Juan de la Cosa, and was likely created in 1500.
The exploration of North America by European sailors and geographers was an effort by major European powers to map and explore the continent with the goal of economic, religious and military expansion. The combative and rapid nature of this exploration is the result of a series of countering actions by neighboring European nations to ensure no single country had garnered enough wealth and power from the Americas to militarily tip the scales over on the European continent. It spanned the late 15th to early 17th centuries, and consisted primarily of expeditions funded by Spain, England, France, and Portugal. See also the European colonization of the Americas.
Cartography throughout the 14th-16th centuries played a significant role in the expansion of the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula for a multitude of reasons. Primarily, the maps developed during this period served as navigational tools for maritime folk such as explorers, sailors and navigators. Mostly the expansion of the Crown of Aragon (which included the Kingdom of Aragon, Kingdom of Valencia and Kingdom of Majorca, together with the Principality of Catalonia, all its territories with seashore on the Mediterranean Sea. The Crown of Aragon controlled the routes across the Mediterranean Sea from the Kingdom of Jerusalem to Europe, as part of the commercial-trade route known as the Silk Road.
The history of mainland New Spain spans three hundred years from the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–21) to the collapse of Spanish rule in the Mexican War of Independence (1810–21).
Relaciones geográficas were a series of elaborate questionnaires distributed to the lands of King Philip II of Spain in the Viceroyalty of New Spain in North America. They were done so, upon his command, from 1579–1585. This was a direct response to the reforms imposed by the Ordenanzas, ordinances, of 1573.
The Salviati Planisphere is a world map showing the Spanish view of the Earth's surface at the time of the map's creation, c. 1525, and includes the eastern coasts of North and South America and the Straits of Magellan. Rather than include imagined material in unexplored areas—as was customary—it is content to leave them blank, inviting future exploration.
Howard F. Cline was an American government official and historian, specializing in Latin America. Cline served as Director of the Hispanic Foundation at the Library of Congress from 1952 until his death in June 1971. He was one of the founders of the Latin American Studies Association. He was also active in the Conference on Latin American History (CLAH), the professional organization of Latin American historians, which he chaired in 1964. He is still highly regarded as a scholar "devoted to and effective in the promotion of Latin American studies in the United States."
Map showing the line of the Treaty of Tordesillas. 1502. Alberto Cantino.
Detail of the Waldseemüller Map, showing the name "America". 1502.
Portuguese map of Brazil by Lopo Homem (c. 1519) showing the coast and natives extracting brazilwood, as well as Portuguese ships
Tenochtitlan 1524.
Map of the Relación geográfica of Culhuacan, Mexico. 1580.
Americas. c. 1640. Dutch. Jodocus Hondius
Map of America Meridional. 1771. Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla
Carte de l'Amerique. 1774. French. Guillaume Delisle
Map of the equator from the La Condamine expedition. mid 18th c.
Map of the Caleta de San Lazaro showing the Batería de la Reina, Havana, Cuba
Chimborazo Map, Alexander von Humboldt. 1805.
Spanish and Portuguese empires in 1790, showing lands over which they asserted sovereignty, but did not necessarily control
Map of Spanish America, ca. 1800
Captaincy General of Chile in 1775
