I roughly know how world maps were created, but detailed local maps of towns and forest's are something I find interesting. What methods were used to scale down in world, to paper distances?

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[–] 34 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Might I suggest this article about French mapmaking in the 1600s. Supposedly in response to a map commissioned by King Louis XIV at the time, which shower France about 20% smaller than originally mapped, the King replied:

"Your work has cost me a large part of my state!"

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The Cassini map is browsable online on https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/

    You can do layers and compare with more modern maps. The accuracy is quite stunning if you know how they made it.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago

    The map overlay on that website is stunning. I don't know much French, but I managed to get it to overlay the IGN map (I presume the currently accepted map from the government mapping agency) on the Cassini map, both at 50% opacity, and it's truly remarkable how good the latter must have been in its time.

    There's so much detail along the coast that was faithfully recorded. The only thing I can spot that is noticeably different would be the river runs, but that's entirely expected since rivers naturally move around.

    I'd love to know if there's a USA website that overlays colonial-era maps atop the modern USGS maps.

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