Da Ming Hun Yi Tu world map (1389) “China developed sophisticated mapping techniques at about the same time as ancient Rome, and never lost them, so by the ‘medieval’ period the country had been mapped with considerable detail and accuracy. When European mapping techniques caught up again at about AD 1300, Islamic contacts were able to supply new maps of the Mediterranean area to China, via the communication routes in the Mongol Empire and these prompted Chinese scholars to create world maps, with China at the centre and Europe, half-way round the globe, depicted very small and horizontally compressed at the edge. Significantly, Africa was also mapped from an Indian Ocean perspective, showing the Cape of Good Hope area, which Europeans would not visit until much later.”

Da Ming Hun Yi Tu world map (1389)

“China developed sophisticated mapping techniques at about the same time as ancient Rome, and never lost them, so by the ‘medieval’ period the country had been mapped with considerable detail and accuracy. When European mapping techniques caught up again at about AD 1300, Islamic contacts were able to supply new maps of the Mediterranean area to China, via the communication routes in the Mongol Empire and these prompted Chinese scholars to create world maps, with China at the centre and Europe, half-way round the globe, depicted very small and horizontally compressed at the edge. Significantly, Africa was also mapped from an Indian Ocean perspective, showing the Cape of Good Hope area, which Europeans would not visit until much later.”