Matthew EdneyMay 17
If any #maps people are paying attention, and have access to CBS TV, 10:20am Eastern Time -- this morning 17 July -- there'll be a segment on the Osher Map Library at University of Southern Maine !!!! I'm on a train and so won't be able to see myself live, as it were, but you all can! #cartography #maphistory
Matthew EdneyApr 30
Fun argument that the US West would have been better managed, esp. re its water resources, if the Western states had followed the watersheds identified by John Wesley Powell ... https://onland.westernlandowners.org/2026/on-water/an-old-map-could-provide-a-new-vision-for-water-management-in-the-west/
#maphistory #maps #cartography
Matthew EdneyApr 18

I've been having fun reading up on the reception of Ptolemy's Geography in the 15th century, and the making of globes. Saw the image that this detail is from as from a "15c" Greek manuscript, but by the stylish knee is plainly America ... so after 1500! BnF ms grec 1401 fol. 2r

Enjoy!

#maps #globe #maphistory

Matthew EdneyApr 17

My 2023–24 exhibition on #maps and #chromolithography is now online at

https://exhibits.oshermaps.org/pageant-of-spectacles/

The exhibition and associated lectures prompted me to write up a long-ish essay on “Mapping, Printing, Color,” which is both part of the exhibition website and available in a separate PDF publication available from

https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/oml_exhibits/13/

#cartography #maphistory #color

Matthew EdneyMar 13

I have a new, long-ish post on Alfred Korzybski's use of his map metaphor (nowadays simplified as "the map is not the territory"). And what I now see as its confusions! Enjoy!!

Read it at https://www.mappingasprocess.net/blog/2026/3/13/maps-territory-and-self-reflexivity-confusions-ofbyabout-korzybski

#maps #MapHistory #cartography #GeneralSemantics #Korzybski

Matthew EdneyMar 6
New #maps #cartography #maphistory book … been waiting for this to come out. Braccio has been identifying indigenous maps (some fakes) in the colonial archive. Congratulations, Nathan!!
Matthew EdneyMar 5

One of my favorite atlas -- the 1513 Strasburg edition of Ptolemy's Geography, with maps by Martin Waldseemüller, printed by Johannes Schott, with some maps in color!!! - has been imaged by Osher map Library and is available online at https://oshermaps.org/map/4073.0184 (link to this page: Ptolemaic map of the ecumene)

#maps #cartography #maphistory #ptolemy #geography

Matthew EdneyMar 5

Registration for the next International Conference on the History of Cartography, being held 7–10 June 2026 in Prague and Brno, Czech Republic, is now open. Cheap rate through 15 April 2026; also, low rates for students. Packed program, great exhibitions, wonderful people!

Register online at https://ichc2026.org

#maps #maphistory #cartography

Matthew EdneyFeb 12

I have added a brief post on my #cartography blog — https://www.mappingasprocess.net/blog/2026/2/12/a-surrealist-map-film — about a 1980 film about #maps, effectively advertising the Pompidou Centre’s great exhibition, Cartes et figures de la terre. It’s wonderful, encapsulating much of “postmodernist” arguments re maps … #maphistory

Link to video w/ English subtitles in the post. Enjoy!!

A Surrealist Map Film! — Mapping as Process

Watch a surrealist film about the relationship of map to territory!

Mapping as Process
Daniel BellingradtJan 26
How barbaric? In the seventeenth-century, European maps still had "BARBARIA" as a part of Africa in them. Barbaria derives from the Arabic term, bilad al-Barbar (land of the Barbar) and was a term contemporarily used mainly for Coastal Northeastern Horn of Africa. 🦁 #earlymodern #maphistory