Why is there a Sea in America on Old Maps?

Maps from the age of discovery are filled with some pretty interesting geography. They had a mass that kept the world from tipping over, the north pole had a giant magnetic rock in the center, there was even land populated by giants.

But what I’m about to show you is one of my favorite examples of weird geography on old maps.

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[GeographyGeek]

Thank you RareMaps.com for supporting another video! Their maps and descriptions are a huge part of the research and visuals that go in these videos. You can purchase your own Verrazano map from their website. - RareMaps.com/

[charaznable]

The Great Lakes are basically a sea, they are bigger than a fair number of states and all joined together. An early explorer with no point of reference could easily stumble across them and assume they are something akin to the Black Sea or the Baltic.

[AndrewJohnson-oyoj]

An equally weird thing about early North America maps is how Florida is accurately presented on dozens of maps made decades before anyone was recorded of having mapped it or even circumnavigating it.

[Eibarwoman]

Little did these explorers know there kind of was an inland sea, the problem was it was the Great Lakes which swallowed up ships.

[Christian_Martel]

On the Island of Montreal (Canada), there is a bourough named « Lachine » as in « The China » It has been named because it was on the shore of the St.Lawrence River where they thought that the Great Lakes were the passage to Asia.

[PalmBeachesPaul]

I love YouTube channels that educate. Most people today couldn't read a map to save their life and GPS doesn't always work

[pixiendixie]

Did anyone else notice that this map shows what they called Iucatana (yucatan) off the west coast of Cuba ?
Right about where they found sunken ruins.

[icouldjustscream]

"Killed and eaten by the natives." uttered in the most casual manner.

[maggipetty]

Kansas used to have a great inland salt sea. There is a giant fossil on the wall in KSU student union. We even have sea gulls that still live in western Kansas. Crazy they'd still be there.

[dellcoc]

The rest of the Piri Reis map has a lot of the US under water too. The reason we still find seashells when digging out foundations in Plano, TX.

[jessicathompson-gautreaux]

My cousin just found a huge fossilized shark tooth sticking out of a clay bank behind his shop, in a suburb of Baton Rouge. He thought it was a big spear at first, and he started digging it out & found that it was a very large, pointed tooth (looks just like today's shark tooth but over 6" long & about 6" wide at the base). I'm hoping he'll get LSU to evaluate his find & maybe see what else is there. Seems there must've been some type of ocean or inland sea there...

[nicholasboyarko]

I grew up in Ohio and practically every rock has fossilized ocean life in them.

[thatswhatshesaid.literally]

If that rendering of a giant is located in South America, they were spot on. The huge Paracus skulls are proof that giants once lived there. (The enormous, non human skills are found all over S. America, but most prevalent in Paracus, Peru.)

[thegameres]

I just found your channel, im very excited to binge all of your videos!😊 this was an awesome one!

[gotterdammerung]

Considering how lethal the outer banks is to ships and how many shipwrecks there are there I am genuinely surprised they sailed through it with their heads up their ass and came out alive

[blondbowler]

I used to see a doctor who had a couple dozen original, museum-quality 15th, 16th, and 17th century maps on the walls of his waiting room.
He said I was not the only one who came early to appointments. In fact, he said, he rarely had a late patient.

[nikc]

holy crap didn’t realize this wasn’t a video with a million views. great content.

[charliebrown]

lol why didnt they just check google maps to map out the geography

[NotDanValentine]

My fave part of this map is at 1:45 where Britain looks like a mere tiny atoll off the coast of Germany.

[Deeplycloseted]

I like how they decided to call the new found land, New Foundland. “Are you sure that’s the name you choose? I mean, it is new, we found it, and it is indeed land. You can call it anything really.”