Although deemed one of the most important inventions in human history, no one person or group of people can be pointed to as the inventor of the map. They are believed to have been developed by many different cultures independently. Maps were produced and used in ancient Babylon, Greece, Rome, and China. The earliest evidence of maps exist in cave paintings and etched in stone.
Today, with the progress of technology, the map is a bit different than a few decades ago. The wall-sized paper map, folded and unfolded like an accordion, fingers and highlighters running over our preferred route, has been replaced by smartphones with GPS and turn-by-turn voice navigation and is still “allowing humans to explain and navigate their way through the world.”