Comparing Maps

First of all, the Walseemüller map of 1507 is a map of the world, and the map on page 379 is just a map of parts of Asia, Europe, and Africa. The European map on page 377 is apparently very detailed. There are many lines and names of cities all around the world. The map is extremely detailed in Europe and eastern Asia, and gets less and less specific the farther away the land is from Europe. In the Americas, there are hardly any names at all, because the Europeans did not have much information about them. So far, the Europeans did not expand their cartographic information because either they could not voyage far enough to do so, or they did not want to bother making the journey because it was too far and they did not feel like they needed that information. They also assumed the Americas were much thinner, and differently shaped than in reality. They put many islands scattered all about the Pacific Ocean, off of where they believed Asia was. The map on page 179 has very little detail. This map shows the Empires of the century. The Songhay empire is in eastern Africa, the Mughal empire is about where India is located, the Ottoman empire surrounds the southern and Eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, and the Safavid empire is in between the Ottoman empire and the Mughal empire. There are no names of cities or states, only the Indian Ocean is labeled. The only lines on land are lines representing rivers. 

A Chinese map from the 16th century would most likely be very detailed in Asia, and the places off the Indian Ocean. The Chinese would be very familiar with these territories because they traded often along the contours of the Indian Ocean. This map would most likely be very vague in Western Europe and the Americas.

A map from the Ottoman empire would be extremely detailed in Europe, especially the south, the north of Africa, and part of East Asia. Also, it would most likely not be very detailed in the Americas either.