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The World as It Was Drawn: The Behaim Globe | Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg (III)

The Behaim Globe, completed in Nuremberg in 1492, is the oldest surviving terrestrial globe in the world. More importantly, it represents one of Europe’s earliest attempts to imagine the entire world as a single connected whole. Rather than discovering the world, fifteenth-century Europeans gradually drew it from the geographical knowledge, travel accounts, commercial experience, religious beliefs, and imagination available at the time. The world was not discovered all at once. It was drawn, revised, and continually reimagined.

The globe reflects the geographical understanding of 1492. America is absent because Columbus had not yet returned from his voyage, while the Earth’s circumference was significantly underestimated, making Asia appear much closer to Europe than it actually is. Although the globe contains many geographical inaccuracies, it demonstrates a profound intellectual shift: people increasingly believed that the entire world could be represented on a single sphere. Even mistaken calculations could encourage exploration, for if the world had not been imagined as smaller than it truly was, the great transoceanic voyages might never have begun.

The museum also reveals that the Behaim Globe is far more than a geographical object. Marco Polo’s travel accounts, the legendary wealth of Japan, the island of Ceylon, fantastic creatures, unknown lands, and discussions of Eurocentrism all illustrate that late medieval maps combined observation with storytelling. Geography, commerce, religion, travel, mythology, and imagination coexisted on the same globe. Maps therefore reflected not only the physical world, but also how each generation understood—and imagined—the world around them.

The globe also marks the beginning of an increasingly interconnected world. Portuguese exploration, the search for maritime routes to Asia, the spice trade, overseas commerce, colonial expansion, and global exchange gradually transformed separate regions into an international network. Maps connected ports, sea routes, merchants, and knowledge, making long-distance navigation increasingly possible. A map did not merely record the known world; it encouraged people to continue sailing beyond it.

Standing before this fifteenth-century globe, I was reminded not of Europe, but of the Chu civilization. Chu left no terrestrial globe, yet it created an extensive river-based world through the Yangtze River, the Han River, the Xiang River, Yunmeng Marsh, and a sophisticated inland transportation system. Europe increasingly understood the world through the sea, while Chu understood it through rivers. One civilisation drew the world onto maps; the other traced it through waterways. Different geographical environments produced different ways of connecting people with distant places.

The imagined conversation between King Kaolie of Chu, Lord Chunshen Huang Xie, and the Lady of Lingyin concludes that the true significance of the Behaim Globe lies not in its geographical accuracy. It lies in the confidence that the world could be understood, connected, and explored. Imperfect maps encouraged people to set out, revise their knowledge, and continue travelling. History was transformed not by perfect maps, but by those who were willing to depart while knowing that their maps were still incomplete.