Unquestionably, the modern map has been important in the shaping of our world. Though today we live in an age of global positioning sysytems and satellite navigation, we can still appreciate the contributions of fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth-century Europeans who first mapped the "New World" in which we live.

While very early mapmaking could be relatively simple affair in that a single artist sometimes drew, engraved or woodcut, printed, and colored each individual map and sold it in his store; developments in the printing arts, particularly the idea of division of labor helped make maps more of a mass medium. The advent of the age of exploration and trade only increased the demand for more detailed and accurate maps. During this period mapmakers of Europe, most notably Italy, made maps much more valuable in that they began to offer collections of many maps packaged together. Flemish cartographers Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius helped standardize what would became known as the atlas.

Cartography, though usually classified as a science is also considered by some an art, and mapmaking followed the conventions of other arts of the various periods. Sixteenth- century maps featured motifs borrowed from tradesmen in the architectural, masonary, and leatherwork trades. Colors in maps tended to be more thick and opaque. Maps of the Seventeenth century had large and decorative titlepieces, vignettes of animals, people, ships, or buildings and decorative borders. Colors were more transparent and resembled watercolor painting. Eighteenth-century work is marked by restraint and less ornamentation. The designs tended to be more delicate and intricate as inspired by the Rococco style of the period. By the nineteenth century maps were much more utitlitarian and artwork, if any, often featured pastoral countryside scenes and nature.