Historically, maps have sought to utilise the complex knowledge of the environment, innate in the majority of the human race, to suit the needs of people who seek to use them. Communities living in small groups and not travelling very far have little need of complex maps, while urban dwellers, seafarers or traders operating in a much more complex and/or wider environment need something more sophisticated, either to delineate boundaries and define ownership, or to travel routes beyond the immediate confines of their communities. As communities have changed and the world they encounter has changed, so have the maps they need to shape or navigate that world.

What exactly constitutes a map has made the identification of the first maps not easy. Early dot maps of the night sky from the 17,000 BC have been found in caves at Lascaux in France, but even earlier representations of mountains and routes dated to 25,000 BC have been identified in the Czechia. At present-day Canal in Anatolia, an aerial map like plan of the town has been dated to about 7,000 years BC, while in the Italian Alps, examples of images date to the 4th millennium BC.

The primary function of the creation of maps is to locate the place of humanity in their world and to guide. Drawings of totemic ancestors, such as crocodiles or birds, and their actions, have been made on bark and cave walls by Australian Aboriginals, as well as through songs and rituals, to act as maps to help guide souls through the world in Dream Time. In the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean are found stick charts, which give an idea of what maps in ancient times might have looked like.