Maps created?

Question

Long before space exploration, exactly how was cartographers able to almost create maps identical to how we use them today, from the time of monarchy?

Answer 1

Going back. Before satellites there was aircraft. And before aircraft there were more conventional methods of navigation. By using the stars, a navigator could figure out his exact geodetic position, and therefore chart the location of a landmark he's standing on or next to. This is how the best maps were made. The ones where there are gross differences between feature locations (coastlines being most obvious) and actual locations were made by measuring locations of landmarks relative to each other, not relative to the stars.

Stellar navigation was crippled until the first accurate clocks were made in the 17th century. There was a prize (I forgot the details), for figuring out a method to find an accurate longitude. A clockmaker won the prize, but some celestial clocks were discovered, such as the exact postion of the moon relative to the stars, and the orbital positions of the Galilean moons of Jupiter.

Answer 2

The time of monarchy? That's strange. United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Morocco, Australia, Canada, New Zeland, Denemark... all these countries are monarchies you know. And they launch satellites!

So, at the time when France, Italy, Russia, Germany, Austria, Portugal... where monarchies, cartographers drew maps just by sailing along the coasts. Then they used mathematics and tools to get accuracy. It was hard and long work.

Answer 3

Satellite photos as well as aerial photos. Then combined with city and regional data and topographic maps (for street names, features and such). Google lines them up with certain points via GPS and everything falls in place. Additionally, there's Google Map Maker where anybody can edit the map (there's a review process of course). You can add and edit places, features, roads and other things that the computers that made the map may have missed, as well as update things that have changed.

Answer 4

They did them the hard way. They reviewed all available information and plotted them by hand on paper. They were lucky in that no one had any better info so it was not obvious how bad many of those maps were. The ones that showed oceans and harbors were really a problem since a rock or shoal that was not on the map was a potential disaster for a ship in that vicinity.