Middle Ages
In medieval T and O maps, Asia makes for half the world's landmass, with Africa and Europe accounting for a quarter each. With the High Middle Ages, Southwest and Central Asia receive better resolution in Muslim geography, and the 11th century map by Mahmud al-Kashgari is the first world map drawn from a Central Asian point of view. In the same period, European explorers of the Silk road like William Rubruck and Marco Polo increase geographical knowledge of Asia in the west, in particular establishing that the Caspian Sea is not connected to the northern ocean.
Chinese exploration by medieval times extends Chinese geographical knowledge to the Indian ocean, the Arabian peninsula and East Africa as well as Southeast Asia.
Read more about this topic: Maps Of Asia
Famous quotes containing the words middle and/or ages:
“The blood of Abraham, Gods father of the chosen, still flows in the veins of Arab, Jew, and Christian, and too much of it has been spilled in grasping for the inheritance of the revered patriarch in the Middle East. The spilled blood in the Holy Land still cries out to Godan anguished cry for peace.”
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“Minerva House ... was a finishing establishment for young ladies, where some twenty girls of the ages from thirteen to nineteen inclusive, acquired a smattering of everything and a knowledge of nothing.”
—Charles Dickens (18121870)