Claudius Ptolemy drew his first maps in c.1500. He invented the grid of co-ordinates method of locating places called longitude and latitude.
It was not until 1486 during the renaissance that map makers rediscovered the latitude and longitude methodology and implemented it themselves.
Ptolemy’s maps of the known world documented the Canary Islands to the Gulf of Thailand. Both Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus added extensively to Ptolemy’s maps based on their own explorations around the globe. In fact the exaggerated size of Asia assisted Marco Polo in raising finance for his famed expeditions.