19
Found a 1700s map that shows a city in Arizona that never existed
I was digging through the Library of Congress digital archives last Tuesday and stumbled on a 1747 map by a French cartographer. It showed a big city called "Quivira" right where Phoenix is now, with streets and churches all drawn in. Turns out it was based on a explorer's tall tale from 100 years earlier. I spent 3 hours cross-referencing it with modern maps and it blew my mind how they just made stuff up back then. Has anyone else found a fake city on an old map that got copied for decades?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
ryan_flores8d ago
Nah man you're totally overthinking this. Maps back then were basically just drawings mixed with rumors, nobody was trying to fact check like we do now. Quivira was probably just a marketing gimmick to make the desert look more interesting to settlers or whatever.
2
faitha407d ago
Ngl, they were basically just playing city-building games with real paper and no undo button.
2