But Ptolemy was prone to the biggest and most contagious cartographic vice: Lacking precise information, he just made things up.

WSJ: Lost in Our Maps: A History of Cartographic Catastrophes

The Gough Map, dating back to the fourteenth century, is the most important and most enigmatic cartographic representation of Great Britain from the medieval period.

UNESCO: UK National Commission for UNESCO - Oxford��s new Digital.Bodleian features UNESCO��s Memory of the World Gough Map

Imagine a large cartographic quilt, tightly stitched in parts but with ragged and jagged edges, with bright patches and threadbare ones in the middle.

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But my favorite cartographic error is the Mountains of Kong, a range that supposedly stretched like a belt from the west coast of Africa through half the continent.

WSJ: Lost in Our Maps: A History of Cartographic Catastrophes

This might be called the cartographic turn, and is characterized by the argument that, while geography matters, it is visible only through the maps that we make of it.

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The catalog of cartographic inaccuracies goes on.

WSJ: Lost in Our Maps: A History of Cartographic Catastrophes