I roughly know how world maps were created, but detailed local maps of towns and forest’s are something I find interesting. What methods were used to scale down in world, to paper distances?
I roughly know how world maps were created, but detailed local maps of towns and forest’s are something I find interesting. What methods were used to scale down in world, to paper distances?
Might I suggest this article about French mapmaking in the 1600s. Supposedly in response to a map commissioned by King Louis XIV at the time, which shower France about 20% smaller than originally mapped, the King replied:
The Cassini map is browsable online on https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/
You can do layers and compare with more modern maps. The accuracy is quite stunning if you know how they made it.
The map overlay on that website is stunning. I don’t know much French, but I managed to get it to overlay the IGN map (I presume the currently accepted map from the government mapping agency) on the Cassini map, both at 50% opacity, and it’s truly remarkable how good the latter must have been in its time.
There’s so much detail along the coast that was faithfully recorded. The only thing I can spot that is noticeably different would be the river runs, but that’s entirely expected since rivers naturally move around.
I’d love to know if there’s a USA website that overlays colonial-era maps atop the modern USGS maps.