full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Kayla Wolf: The biggest mistakes in mapmaking history
Unscramble the Blue Letters
The “Da Ming Hunyi Tu” was created in China in 1389 on a piece of silk big enough to fill an entire room. Though the mapmakers had never been to Africa, they attempted to depict the continent beasd on the accounts of the traders who’d been there. Surprisingly, this gave them enough iomtoainfrn to ceatre a correctly shaped portrayal of sub-Saharan Africa.
Beginning in the 15th century, European cartographers began to expand the scope of their world maps as their eoxerlprs tarveeld the world— but not without mtseipss. In 1507, the gmaren cartographer Martin weeuadselllmr mapped the Americas— as a thin sliver of land where the east coast would be. snasiph cartographers took a stab at the western side of the Americas based on aucctnos from an expedition to the Baja Peninsula. Unfortunately, the explorers’ impressions of the land led them astray: for over 100 years after, Spanish maps depicted the “Island of California” detached from the rest of the continent.
Open Cloze
The “Da Ming Hunyi Tu” was created in China in 1389 on a piece of silk big enough to fill an entire room. Though the mapmakers had never been to Africa, they attempted to depict the continent _____ on the accounts of the traders who’d been there. Surprisingly, this gave them enough ___________ to ______ a correctly shaped portrayal of sub-Saharan Africa.
Beginning in the 15th century, European cartographers began to expand the scope of their world maps as their _________ ________ the world— but not without ________. In 1507, the ______ cartographer Martin _____________ mapped the Americas— as a thin sliver of land where the east coast would be. _______ cartographers took a stab at the western side of the Americas based on ________ from an expedition to the Baja Peninsula. Unfortunately, the explorers’ impressions of the land led them astray: for over 100 years after, Spanish maps depicted the “Island of California” detached from the rest of the continent.
Solution
- information
- accounts
- create
- missteps
- traveled
- based
- spanish
- waldseemuller
- german
- explorers
Original Text
The “Da Ming Hunyi Tu” was created in China in 1389 on a piece of silk big enough to fill an entire room. Though the mapmakers had never been to Africa, they attempted to depict the continent based on the accounts of the traders who’d been there. Surprisingly, this gave them enough information to create a correctly shaped portrayal of sub-Saharan Africa.
Beginning in the 15th century, European cartographers began to expand the scope of their world maps as their explorers traveled the world— but not without missteps. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller mapped the Americas— as a thin sliver of land where the east coast would be. Spanish cartographers took a stab at the western side of the Americas based on accounts from an expedition to the Baja Peninsula. Unfortunately, the explorers’ impressions of the land led them astray: for over 100 years after, Spanish maps depicted the “Island of California” detached from the rest of the continent.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| world maps |
4 |
| blank spots |
2 |
| north africa |
2 |
| north pole |
2 |
Important Words
- accounts
- africa
- americas
- attempted
- baja
- based
- began
- beginning
- big
- cartographer
- cartographers
- century
- china
- coast
- continent
- correctly
- create
- created
- depict
- depicted
- detached
- east
- entire
- european
- expand
- expedition
- explorers
- fill
- gave
- german
- hunyi
- impressions
- information
- land
- led
- mapmakers
- mapped
- maps
- martin
- ming
- missteps
- peninsula
- piece
- portrayal
- rest
- room
- scope
- shaped
- side
- silk
- sliver
- spanish
- stab
- surprisingly
- thin
- traders
- traveled
- waldseemuller
- western
- world
- years