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Description
STS109-708-024 (1-12 March 2002) --- The astronauts on board the Space Shuttle Columbia took this 70mm picture featuring the Sinai Peninsula and the Dead Sea Rift. The left side of the view is dominated by the great triangle of the Sinai peninsula, which is partly obscured by an unusual cloud mass on this day. The famous Monastery of St. Catherine lies in the very remote, rugged mountains in the southern third of the peninsula (foreground). The Gulf of Aqaba is a finger of the Red Sea bottom center, pointing north to the Dead Sea, the small body of water near the center of the view. According to NASA scientists studying the STS-109 photo collection, the gulf and the Dead Sea are northerly extensions of the same geological rift that resulted in the opening of the Red Sea . The Gulf of Suez appears in the lower left corner. Northwest Saudi Arabia occupies the lower right side of the view, Jordan and Syria the right and top right, and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea the top left. Thin white lines of cloud have formed along the coastal mountains of southern Turkey and stretch across the top of the view near the Earth's limb.
Description
STS079-782-050 The Island of Cyprus September 1996 Covering an area of 3578 sq. miles (9267 sq. km) and located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the island of Cyprus can be seen in this northeast-looking view. Cyprus is located 40 miles (60 km) south of Turkey and 60 miles (100 km) west of Syria. There are three main geographic regions on Cyprus. The Troodos Massif, consisting of mostly volcanic rock and some limestone, traverses the southwest portion of the island (darker feature near the center of the image). Iron and copper pyrites are found in the foothills and asbestos and chromium in the higher slopes of the Troodos. The highest elevation in the massif is 6406 feet (1953 meters). Numerous government-owned forests cover the Troodos Massif. On the north coast is the Kyrenia Range, a narrow mountain range reaching elevations of 3000 feet (1000 meters). Consisting mainly of limestone, the range is wooded. Between the two mountain ranges is the Central Plain, where seventy percent of the island?s agriculture is located. The capital city of Cyprus, Nicosia, is situated on the Central Plain. The plain consists of a limestone crust and is considered a flat tableland. Heavily forested in ancient times, today the plain is almost treeless.
Description
STS073-723-054 (20 OCTOBER - 5 NOVEMBER 1995) --- Central Turkey dominates this north-looking panorama, with the long fingered island of Cyprus lower left, surrounded by the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Turkey's capital, Ankara, lies just north of the white bed of a dry lake in the center of the view. The city is supplied with water from the neighboring blue lake. The coast of Syria and Lebanon appear bottom right. Man-made lakes on the upper Euphrates River in eastern Turkey appear extreme right.. According to scientists studying the STS-73 photo collection, the striking difference in visibility to north and south of Turkey suggests a pollution event over the Black Sea. Air pollution from East European industry flows down into the Black Sea basin, especially at the west end (haze top left) as shown in this view (compare clearer air top right).
Author
Voenno-Topograf Otdele (Military Typographic Division Russia)
Author
Voenno-Topograf Otdele (Military Typographic Division Russia)
Author
Ottoman Army – General Staff (4th Division)
Note
"This is a key milestone in the history of Ottoman cartography, being the very first distance-time-route map of the entire Ottoman Empire. Published in Istanbul in 1893, it was produced by the General Staff (Fourth Division) of the Ottoman Army, predicated upon exhaustive highway surveys and itinerary records compiled over recent years. The map captures the scene during the middle of the rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (reigned 1876-1909), during which the empire still controlled vast territories in Europe, Asia and Africa, extending from Albania to Yemen and from Libya to the Persian Gulf. The Hamidian Era also marked a period of rapid modernization of the empire, including the creation of macadamized roads (highways), railways and modern ports. It also hailed the rise of highly sophisticated scientific and thematic cartography of the all regions of the realm created by Ottoman subjects, as opposed to Westerners. The main part of the map encompasses a great area, centred upon Anatolia, but taking in all the core regions of the Ottoman Empire, with its coverage extending from Bosnia, in the northwest, all the way down to Kuwait City and the head of the Persian Gulf, in southwest, and from Crimea and Baku, in the north and east, down to include Lower Egypt in the southwest. The scope is extended by insets that depict the extremities of the empire; in the lower right corner is an inset capturing the western Persian Gulf, including Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar; the inset above details the Red Sea, including Hejaz, Asir and Yemen; while the large inset in the lower felt depicts Ottoman Libya, as well as parts of French Tunisia and Algeria. Exclusively employing text in Ottoman Turkish, the map is traversed by hundreds of lines that connect every city and town of importance in the empire, representing the main land travel routes between these centres. Each segment is accompanied by a number that corresponds to the estimated average travel times between the points in hours (assuming travel by foot while marching, or travel with a horse at a slow trott). The travel times in hours roughly correspond to the distance in the Ottoman unit of a firsah (or league), which is equivalent to 5.685 km (3.532 miles). In the lower right, the map features a chart quantifying the routes between the most important centres. For instance, the map reveals that, on average, it took 18 hours to travel from the Red Sea port of Jeddah to the holy city of Mecca (a journey that would normally be divided into at least two, if not three, days). The present work is the first ever map to display the distances between all significant travel points in the Ottoman Empire, and for this reason it would have been vitally useful for soldiers, merchants and government bureaucrats when planning their itineraries. It was also one of the only maps to give an approximately accurate notion of the times and distance along several of the most important Hajj Routes, including the famous Syrian Hajj Road, being the 1307 km-long route from Damascus to Mecca, which is here measured out on the present map. The route itself is of such great historical significance that it is being considered by UNESCO for World Heritage Status, an unusual distinction for an itinerary, as opposed to a single, distinct place. Transportation had always been one of the great challenges confronting the Ottoman Empire. An astoundingly vast realm, spanning parts of three continents, and traversing some of the World’s most rugged and forbidding terrain, overland travel was especially difficult. Traditionally, the condition of the empire’s roads was deplorable; many places were connected only by crude caravan trails. For instance, before the introduction of railways, it took 14-16 days for a horse cart laden with produce to travel from Ankara to Istanbul, while the routes between centres even further part could take months to traverse. Throughout the 19th Century the territorial integrity of the empire was continually threatened and reduced by the Sublime Porte’s foreign and domestic enemies. The inability of the Ottoman Army to quickly deploy to military theatres severely limited the Sultan’s authority. Moreover, the extreme travel times between centres was hindering the empire’s ability to develop a modern industrial national economy, one of the government’s ultimate goals. Moreover, the empire was also home to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites of Islam, the latter of which was the destination of the Hajj, the world’s greatest pilgrimage. The Ottoman Sultan’s legitimacy rested upon his clam to being the Caliph of Islam, or the Defender of the Faith, which included a responsibility for the protection of pilgrims. As the routes to Mecca were often arduous, if not dangerous, this somewhat undercut the Sultan’s effectiveness as the ‘protector’, a matter which Abdul Hamid II would go to extraordinary efforts to ameliorate. Abdul Hamid II’s government relied heavily upon foreign capital and technical expertise to improve the country’s ports, build macadamized roads, and, most importantly, to create a comprehensive railway network. The present map depicts the rapidly expanding Ottoman railway system, just after a wave of development had revolutionized travel in the empire’s European domains, but just before an unprecedented boom in railway construction would do the same for Ottoman Asia. As shown, the Balkans are traversed by several railways; most notably as of 1888 the great port of Salonika (Thessaloniki) was connected to the rest of Europe by rail, while Istanbul was linked to the European system for the first time that same year, providing the direct route for the famed Orient Express, which commenced in 1889. One will also notice the first great leg of the Anatolian Railway that connected Istanbul to Ankara on December 31, 1892, completed only a matter of weeks before the present map was issued. The Anatolian Railway would subsequently be expanded with the ambition of reaching Iraq, creating the Baghdad Railway (a project which would become one of the great factors of World War I). The present map, however, predates the great railway boom that would occur in the Levant and Arabia, whereby from 1895 to 1908, major centres in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine would be linked, while the legendary Hejaz Railway would connect Damascus to Medina (within relatively close proximity to Mecca). The railways had a revolutionary effect upon the Ottoman Empire, spurring economic development, improving governance and facilitating military movement. The empire’s infrastructure projects and related economic development, administrative and military ventures were a catalyst leading to the creation of advanced thematic cartography in Istanbul. The Sublime Porte’s various organs (notably the War Ministry) provided generous funding for the creation of maps to assist the modernization of the country and the graphic recording of data. This dovetailed into the rise of a vibrant private publishing scene that enjoyed government patronage. Ottoman cartographers were initially schooled in the world’s most advanced cartographic methods by French and German instructors (while some Ottoman mapmakers even apprenticed in European geographic publishing houses), although by the late 1880s many Ottoman cartographers had gained the skills and experience to develop their own unique works with an Ottoman flair, well beyond duplicating Western methods. Ottoman cartographers were producing topographic and thematic maps of the highest sophistication and diversity, every bit as impressive as those of the best German and French and British mapmakers. However, these works, such as the present map, are today not nearly as well-known as they deserve to be. First, Ottoman thematic maps tend to be very rare today. They were almost invariably issued in only small print runs, while maps intended for practical use in the field, such as the present work, tended to perish, leaving few survivors. Second, Turkey’s switch from using Arabic-based script to Latin script, in 1928, ensured that many of the surviving Ottoman maps were discarded, as they could no longer be understood my most people. Third, the academic study of late Ottoman cartography, even in Turkey, has been haphazard, leaving many important realms of the subject almost completely untouched by modern authors. Hopefully, the present rise in interest in Ottoman cartography will lead to these maps receiving the attention they deserve viz. better known Western works. The present map is rare. While encountered another example a few years ago, the map only rarely appears on the market. We cannot trace any examples in institutions outside of Turkey. The library of the Harita Genel Müdürlüğü (General Command of Mapping) of the Turkish Army, in Ankara, holds an example that that has appeared as part of exhibitions." (Alexander Johnson, 2020)
Author
[Mercator, Gerhard, 1512-1594, Hondius, Jodocus, 1563-1612]
Author
Pinkerton, John, 1758-1826
Note
Engraved map. Full hand col. Relief shown by hachures. "Pinkerton's modern atlas."
Author
[Black, Adam & Charles, Hall, Sidney, Hughes, William]
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Relief shown by hachures. Countries shown by tinting. Inset of Ruins of Babylon.
Author
[Lowry, J.W., Sharpe, J.]
Note
Relief shown by hachures. Countries outlined in color.
Author
Moll, Herman, d. 1732
Note
Hand col. engraved map. Relief shown pictorially.
Author
Mitchell, Samuel Augustus
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States shown in tinted color. Relief shown in hachures. Inset of Environs of Constantinople.
Author
Lucas, Fielding Jr.
Note
Engraved. Colored by state.
Author
[Bourquin, Frederick, Mitchell, Samuel Augustus, Tanner, Henry S.]
Note
Lithographed. Relief shown with hachures. Inset of the Environs of Constantinople (Istanbul).
Author
Playfair, James
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Engraved uncolored map. Relief shown by hachures. Rivers shown.
Author
Playfair, James
Note
Engraved uncolored map. Relief shown by hachures. Rivers shown. Place names in Latin.
Author
[Dower, John Nicaragua, Teesdale, Henry]
Note
Engraved, with colored margins of countries. Shows cities, place names, roads, rivers, lakes, and islands. Relief shown with hachures.
Author
[Brue, Adrien Hubert, 1786-1832, Picquet, C.]
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Hand colored engraved map. Relief shown by hachures. In embossed seal: Propriete acquise en 1835.
Author
Spruner von Merz, Karl
Note
Hand colored map. Relief shown by hachures.
Author
Ziegler, J. M.
Note
Colored map. Relief shown by hachures. Shows railroads, telegraph stations, submarine telegraph lines, etc. Prime meridian: Ferro.
Author
[Menke, Th., Spruner von Merz, Karl]
Note
Hand colored map. Relief shown by hachures. Prime meridian: Ferro.
Author
Kiepert, Heinrich, 1818-1899
Note
1 color map. Relief shown by hachures. Prime meridian: Paris.
Author
Darton, William
Note
Hand colored engraved map.
Author
Brue, Adrien Hubert, 1786-1832
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Hand colored engraved map. Relief shown by hachures.
Author
Arrowsmith, John
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Engraved map. Hand colored boundaries. Relief shown by hachures.
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Engraved map. Hand colored. Relief shown pictorially. Prime meridians: Washington and Greenwich.
Author
Flemming, Carl
Note
Hand colored lithographed map. Relief shown by hachures. Prime meridian: Ferro.
Author
[Berghaus, Heinrich, 1797-1884, Sohr, Karl, Flemming, Carl]
Note
Hand colored in outline map. Includes legend, administrative table and elevation table. Relief shown by hachures.
Author
[Stieler, Adolf, Habenicht, H.]
Author
Touring club italiano
Note
Color map. Relief shown by hachures and spot heights; depths by isolines. Includes 1:250,000 scale inset of the Istanbul region.
Author
Touring club italiano
Note
Explanation to map.
Author
Hellert, J. J.
Note
Engraved map. Shows major cities and towns. Prime meridian is Ferro. Relief shown by hachures and form lines. Includes legend.
Author
[Meissas, Achille, 1799-187, Michelot, Auguste Jean Charles, 1792-1854]
Note
2 colored in outline double page steel engraving maps of Turkey and Northern Syria, on sheet 14x22. Scale 1:8,000,000 and Western Turkey, on sheet 22x14, Scale 1:3,700,000. Maps showing political and administrative divisions, regions, major cities, rivers, mountains, etc. Relief shown by hachures and pictorially. At upper margin: Atlas Complet Nos. 37 et 38.
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Engraved map, uncolored. Relief shown by hachures. Shows settlements, rivers, etc.
Note
Engraved map, uncolored. Relief shown by hachures. Shows settlements, roads, rivers, etc.
Author
[Anville, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d, 1697-1782, Robert Laurie & James Whittle]
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Hand colored engraved map. Relief shown pictorially.
Author
Stanford, Edward
Note
Full color. Relief shown by hachures. Shows settlements, roads, railroad, submarine cables, etc.
Author
Stanford, Edward
Note
Full color. Relief shown by hachures. Shows settlements, roads, railroad, submarine cables, etc.
Author
[Bartholomew, J. G. (John George), 1860-1920, John Bartholomew and Son]
Note
Col. map. Relief shown by hypsometric tints and spot heights; depths by bathymetric tints. Shows shipping routes with distances, etc.
Author
Lizars, Daniel
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Hand colored engraved map. Relief shown pictorially.
Author
[Rushtu, Mehmet, Eshref, Mehmet]
Note
Detailed color folded map of Syria and Beirut. Showing political and administrative boundaries, major cities, towns, roads, railroads, rivers and mountains. Relief shown by hachure.
Author
[Rushtu, Mehmet, Eshref, Mehmet]
Note
Detailed color folded map of Aleppo province (Vilayat). Showing administrative boundaries, major cities, towns, roads, rivers and mountains. Relief shown by hachure.
Author
[Kiepert, Heinrich, 1818-1899, Rand McNally and Company]
Note
Color map. Relief shown by hachures. Prime meridians are Paris and Greenwich. Includes legend and notes.
Author
Kiepert, Heinrich, 1818-1899
Note
Outline color. Relief shown by hachures. Prime meridians are Paris and Greenwich. Includes legend and notes.
Author
Kiepert, Heinrich, 1818-1899
Note
Outline hand colored map. Relief shown by hachures. Prime meridians are Paris and Greenwich.
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![(Ottoman Empire) ممالك Ù…Øرسى وشاهانى بك Øاى واولديغى بلاد Istanbul, 1309 Rumi Calendar [1893].](https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/iiif/RUMSEY~8~1~323474~90092673/full/384,/0/default.jpg)
