True or False: Some medieval maps put Jerusalem near the center.

The story behind the answer

Medieval European “mappaemundi” were designed as religious worldviews as much as geographic tools. Cartographers placed Jerusalem at the center to reflect its spiritual centrality as the site of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection—an axis mundi for Christian cosmology. Famous examples include the Hereford Mappa Mundi (c. 1300) and the Ebstorf Map.

These maps often oriented east at the top (toward the rising sun and the Garden of Eden), with Asia above, Europe and Africa below, and the world divided into three parts by a “T” within an “O.” Their purpose was to teach biblical history, illustrate pilgrimage routes, and convey moral and theological lessons, rather than to provide precise navigational accuracy.