Northern India – Mughal Empire

The first map of India to be printed in the Islamic World.

This extraordinary map was published in Istanbul in 1732, making it the earliest map of India to be printed in the Islamic World and the first to employ typography in Arabic characters. It embraces all of Northern India, being the heartland of the Mughal Empire, which was in its prime when the map was conceived, but in decline when the map was printed.
All major cities and rivers are noted, while the progress of the Mughal Trunk Road, which ran from Agra to Lahore, is expressed pictographically. The Nesih Arabic typography flows elegantly across the composition, while the original colour palate and the style of the fine cartouches are distinctly Turkish.

The map part of the atlas Cihannüma (1732), which translates as ‘Mirror of the World’, published by Ibrahim Müteferrika, who directed the first printing press in the Ottoman Empire. The atlas was originally created in manuscript form during the mid-17th Century by the Turkish geographer Kâtip Çelebi.