The History Of Aerial Maps And Mapping

Maps have been around for centuries, it is hard to image how our forefathers were able to so accurate depict the world with the limitations they face. Babylonian clay tablets are the earliest surviving signs of any maps made. These showed the world as flat; because no one knows for sure when or where the first map was drawn the Babylonian depiction hold the honor as the world’s first map. This map was found in 1930 in present day Iraq.

While we can trace the history of maps to ancient times, the history of aerial maps is much shorter. The discipline came about only after the advent of photography and flying. The first aerial maps were photographs taken from hot air balloons in the mid 1800s. The first record aerial photograph was taken over France in 1858 by Nader (Gasper Felix Tournachon). He took a picture of a French village, Petit-Bectre from a hot air balloon. This picture showed the houses in the village; he followed this feat with another depicting Paris in 1868. Unfortunately these aerial maps no longer exist, but James Wallace Black’s aerial shot of Boston in 1860 is still in existence today.

By 1906, the full range of what could be done with a camera in mid-air was being realized. Photographer George Lawrence captured the aftermath of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 using a number of kites equipped with cameras. This showed the use of aerial photographs as a map to identify what destruction was done to the area. The first such picture using an airplane was done by Wilber Wright, of the Wright brothers, in 1909.

Today many aerial maps are available from Microsoft TerraServer, which includes thousands of spy maps from the Cold War era. These are a great addition to the developing knowledgebase on the history of aerial maps.