The world of 500 years ago, divided between cultures which knew little or nothing of each other, has now been transformed into the global village in which we live today. Explorers and map-makers were in the first wave of the makers of the modern world - discovering, reporting and recording the routes which link the regions of the world and which brought human awareness to almost all the communities which inhabit the planet. This atlas maps these routes, and sets their work in its historical context, starting with the first map-makers in China some 3000 years ago, surveying the golden age of navigation and discovery, and bringing the story up to the present day by looking at the achievements of remote-sensing satellites and deep-sea exploration. Dr Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is the author of The Canary Islands after the Conquest and Before Columbus.