How did people know what the earth looks like before satellites were in space?

Question

nowadays, we obviously know what the world looks like (where land is, where water is, the shape of the land) being that satellites are in space but how did we know before that?

Answer 1

A good question. For an answer, look at some old maps. Considering how difficult navigation and mapping must have been back then, those old-time geographers and navigators must have been very clever and hard-working. I salute guys like Captain James Cook, who mapped my country of NZ, and all the others. Cook incorrectly believed that Banks Peninsula in Canterbury was an island, and that Stewart Island down here in Southland was a peninsula. Easy mistakes to make. When you drive down SH1 about 50 km from Christchurch you can see the high ground of Banks Peninsula but not the low ground that connects it to the rest of the South Island, so it looks like an island. The only way you'd discover Foveaux Strait, which separates Stewart Island from the South Island, would be to sail through it. From the south, Stewart Island looks like part of the Mainland. Milford Sound, one of our money-spinning tourist attractions, was missed by several early explorers. From the sea, you'd never guess it's more than a shallow uninteresting bay.

Answer 2

Short answer, they had to be really good at maths.

Long answer... First there was observation of the local area. Mountains, towers, or other high vantage points are rather good for this sort of thing. You can see the horizon, and you can accurately map it assuming that you're relatively decent at translating what you see and what you know to paper or parchment or whatever the case may be. Maps were shared and compiled and crude maps of regions began to be constructed over the centuries.

After developing the concept of longitude and latitude, people were able to use the sun, moon, and planets to relatively accurately determine their distance on land or on sea. The first instrument to do this was the astrolabe, invented in the 2nd Century BCE. Using this, one was able to pinpoint what one was observing from land, mountain or sea and it made map translation much easier and much more accurate. The astrolabe itself was used for almost 2000 years until the development of the sextant which provided even better precision in latitude/longitude location. Of course, the results were not perfect and it was quite some time until major land masses were completely destroyed.
If you take a look at early maps of the Americas, for example, you will see that they are a)incomplete and b)relatively accurate, but distorted due to the relative ineffectiveness of the more primitive methods in comparison to direct observation via satellite.

Answer 3

properly I’m merely going to declare this if aliens exist they are going to be some what a similar like us. perhaps the aliens have area gangs or pirates... that’s stupid top!?! yet just to declare this no one is conscious… that’s a strange question you asked. to tell you the certainty I desire i will stay on the moon... and Mr. Hilton is unquestionably construction a hotel up there no lie! he's dropping a minimum of 5 million just to construct a hotel on the moon; he stated this as quickly as we discovered water crystals up there!

Answer 4

We didn't know what it looked like. We only knew about the parts we had discovered. As we discoverd more, we added it to the map. I guess you could compare it outerspace now.. we can't see all of it, but what we find, we just add to what we already know.

Answer 5

In the Bible it was always written that God created the earth round, so the people who read their Bible carefully knew that the earth was round.

Answer 6

the people in past ages know it by observing ships that go through the ocean....