<P> Medieval maps of the world in Europe were mainly symbolic in form along the lines of the much earlier Babylonian World Map . Known as Mappa Mundi (clothes of the world) these maps were circular or symmetrical cosmological diagrams representing the Earth's single land mass as disk - shaped and surrounded by ocean . </P> <P> Roger Bacon's investigations of map projections and the appearance of portolano and then portolan charts for plying the European trade routes were rare innovations of the period . The Majorcan school is contrasted with the contemporary Italian cartography school . The Carta Pisana portolan chart, made at the end of the 13th century (1275--1300), is the oldest surviving nautical chart (that is, not simply a map but a document showing accurate navigational directions). </P> <P> The Majorcan cartographic school was a predominantly Jewish cooperation of cartographers, cosmographers and navigational instrument - makers in late 13th to the 14th and 15th Century Majorca . With their multicultural heritage unstressed by fundamentalistic academic Christian traditions, the Majorcan cartographic school experimented and developed unique cartographic techniques, as it can be seen in the Catalan Atlas . The Majorcan school was (co -) responsible for the invention (c. 1300) of the "Normal Portolan chart". It was a contemporary superior, detailed nautical model chart, gridded by compass lines . </P> <P> In the Renaissance, with the renewed interest in classical works, maps became more like surveys once again, while the discovery of the Americas by Europeans and the subsequent effort to control and divide those lands revived interest in scientific mapping methods . Peter Whitfield, the author of several books on the history of maps, credits European mapmaking as a factor in the global spread of western power: "Men in Seville, Amsterdam or London had access to knowledge of America, Brazil, or India, while the native peoples knew only their own immediate environment" (Whitfield). Jordan Branch and his advisor, Steven Weber, propose that the power of large kingdoms and nation states of later history are an inadvertent byproduct of 15th - century advances in map - making technologies . </P>

Who created the first map of the world