Showing the world on a map

Curriculum expectations

B3.1 — demonstrate an understanding that there are a variety of countries, continents, physical features, and bodies of water around the world and that their locations can be represented in different ways […]

B3.2 — identify continents, significant bodies of water, the equator, poles, and hemispheres, using a globe, print, digital, or interactive maps, and/or a mapping program

Brief

This lesson asks you to understand that countries, continents and bodies of water can be shown in different ways, and to find the equator and the two halves of the earth on a globe or a map. The museum offers a medieval map of the world and a description of the equator; your class works with a globe and present-day maps. ¹

How can the same world be drawn differently?

Compare a globe, a flat map and a set of small maps. Ask what each shows well and what is hard to see on it.

Where does the earth divide in two?

Find the equator on a globe and say which half is north and which is south.

Go deeper

The preface to al-Idrisi's book says that King Roger wanted to know his lands with certainty ². The books did not satisfy him, so he questioned those who knew the subject, and then the people who had travelled the lands, together and one by one. What they agreed on he kept, and what they disputed he set aside ³. Then a drawing board was brought, and he tested the distances on it with iron measuring tools. When he was satisfied, he ordered the silver disc ³. This is the story behind al-Idrisi's map of the world.

Think about it

Roger kept what the travellers agreed on and set aside what they disputed. Why might a mapmaker trust a report more when several travellers agree on it than when only one traveller says it?

Into the museum

Al-Idrisi's world map: the silver disc and the book of seventy maps.
The equator: the line that divides the earth into two halves.
Al-Idrisi: the author of the book and the drawer of its maps.

Try this

Read al-Idrisi's world map and the equator. Find the equator on a globe, then name one place north of it and one south of it.

Sources

The Ontario Curriculum: Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6; History and Geography, Grades 7 and 8 (2023)

Al-Idrisi, Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya, 2002), 2 vols. , p. 5

Al-Idrisi, Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya, 2002), 2 vols. , p. 6