In 2002 South Africa's Parliament unveiled a digital reproduction of a map - of China, the Middle East and Africa - that some speculated could be the first map of the African continent. The Da Ming Hun Yi Tu - the Comprehensive Map of the Great Ming Empire - was drawn up around 1389 during the Ming Dynasty, according to historian Hyunhee Park.
Park published Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds, a book on cartography and the history of contact between China and the Islamic world from 700 to 1500 AD, in 2012. She reveals that Vasco da Gama, the first Westerner to round the Cape, was only able to reach India because his navigator, a Muslim from Gujarat in India, knew the routes.
...