Ancient World Map (Peta Dunia Kuno)


A map of Asia made in the late 1800s in the Ottoman Empire.

A map of the Strait of Gibraltar from Piri Reis's 1525 "Kitab-ı Bahriye" ("Book of Navigation").

An Ottoman-era map of Cairo, Egypt, drawn by the great sailor and geographer Piri Reis in 1525.

Muhammad al-Idrisi's world map from 1154. North is at the bottom.

A world map drawn in 1803 in the Ottoman Empire.

A 16th century map of the island of Malta by the Ottoman geographer, Piri Reis.

An Ottoman-era map of Crete.

Via Ottoman History Picture Archives

An Ottoman-era map of Asia, drawn in the 1700s.

A world map drawn by the Ottoman admiral, Piri Reis, in the early 1500s.

A map of Southeast Asia made by the Sultanate of Aceh in 1850. It was sent to the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul to strengthen ties between the two empires, particularly in the face of the Dutch invasion of Southeast Asia.

The map clearly shows the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Bali, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and the southern tip of India.

An Ottoman world map drawn in the mid-1500s. It is notable in that it clearly shows the continent of Antarctica and maps it relatively accurately.

The first known European sighting of Antarctic land was in the 1700s, 200 years after this map was drawn.

An Ottoman map of Africa drawn in the 1600s by Katip Çelebi.

A very interesting and rare map of the United States drawn in the Ottoman Empire in 1877.

The map is in the Turkish language, although spelled out using Greek letters. Note that the map is labelled "Mamalik Amerika", the Ottoman Turkish name for America but written in Greek letters.

Piri Reis' map of Europe from the early 1500s.

An Ottoman map from 1900 of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China.

An Ottoman-era map of Istanbul (Constantinople) showing the location of hundreds of mosques throughout the city.

A map of the United States, made in the Ottoman Empire, probably in the late 1800s/early 1900s.

A map of Europe made by an unknown Ottoman map-maker.

If you click "Options", you can download the high quality version and read the various names of cities and countries on the map.