Famous Geographical Mapping Errors Ever

From phantom islands to mislabeled continents, mapmaking has a history of significant errors that baffled explorers and cartographers.

The top 3

  1. California as an Island: For over 200 years, maps erroneously depicted California as an island, a misconception fueled by a 1510 Spanish romance novel and copycat cartography.
  2. The Phantom Mountains of Kong: The 'Mountains of Kong,' a non-existent mountain range, appeared on maps of West Africa for nearly a century after a Scottish explorer's vague accounts in 1798.
  3. Lake Apalache in the Carolinas: The imaginary 'Lake Apalache' was mistakenly added to a 1606 Dutch map of the American Southeast and persisted on subsequent maps, with one explorer even claiming to have visited it.

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