Cartography (/kɑːrˈtɒɡrəfi/) is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
The fundamental objectives of traditional cartography are to:
Agathodaemon of Alexandria (Ancient Greek: Ἀγαθοδαίμων Ἀλεξανδρεὺς, Agathodaímōn Alexandreùs) was a Greek or Hellenized Egyptian cartographer, presumably from Alexandria, Roman Egypt, during late Antiquity, likely in the 2nd century AD.
Agathodaemon is mentioned in some of the earliest manuscripts of Ptolemy's Geography:
Abraham Ortelius (/ɔːrˈtiːliəs/ or-TEE-lee-əs; also Ortels, Orthellius or Wortels; 4 or 14 April 1527 – 28 June 1598) was a cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer from Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands. He is recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World). Along with Gemma Frisius and Gerardus Mercator, Ortelius is generally considered one of the founders of the Netherlandish school of cartography and geography. He was a notable figure of this school in its golden age (approximately 1570s–1670s) and an important geographer of Spain during the age of discovery. The publication of his atlas in 1570 is often considered as the official beginning of the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography. He was the first person proposing that the continents were joined before drifting to their present positions.
Bartolomeu Velho (died 1568) was a sixteenth-century Portuguese cartographer and cosmographer.
Velho prepared the Carta General do Orbe (General Chart of the Globe) in 1561 for Sebastian of Portugal.
Andreas Cellarius (c. 1596–1665) was a Dutch–German cartographer and cosmographer best known for his 1660 Harmonia Macrocosmica, a major star atlas.
Johannes Janssonius (1588, in Arnhem – buried July 11, 1664, in Amsterdam; born Jan Janszoon), also known in English as Jan Jansson, was a Dutch cartographer and publisher who lived and worked in Amsterdam in the 17th century.
Joan Blaeu (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈjoːɑm ˈblʌu]; 23 September 1596 – 21 December 1673), also called Johannes Blaeu, was a Dutch cartographer and the official cartographer of the Dutch East India Company. Blaeu is most notable for his map published in 1648, which was the first map to incorporate the heliocentric theory into a map of the world and was the first map that incorporated the discoveries of Abel Tasman. Blaeu renamed what is now New Zealand as Nieuw Zeeland after the Dutch province of Zeeland; the anglicized version of the name is still in use today.
John Thomson (c. 1777 – c. 1840) was a Scottish cartographer from Edinburgh, celebrated for his 1817 New General Atlas, published by himself in Edinburgh, John Cumming in Dublin, and Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy in London.
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Sebastian Münster (20 January 1488 – 26 May 1552) was a German cartographer and cosmographer. He also was a Christian Hebraist scholar who taught as a professor at the University of Basel. His well-known work, the highly accurate world map, Cosmographia, sold well and went through 24 editions. Its influence was widely spread by a production of woodcuts created of it by a variety of artists.
Edward Weller (1 July 1819 – May 1884) FRGS was a British engraver and cartographer who was one of the first to produce maps using lithography.
He was a "London-based engraver, cartographer and publisher, working from offices in Red Lion Square and later, Bloomsbury", who produced detailed steel plate engraved maps.