The cartography of India begins with early charts for navigation and constructional plans for buildings. Indian traditions influenced Tibetan and Islamic traditions, and in turn, were influenced by the British cartographers who solidified modern concepts into India's map making.
A prominent foreign geographer and cartographer was Hellenistic geographer Ptolemy (90–168) who researched at the library in Alexandria to produce a detailed eight-volume record of world geography. During the Middle Ages, India sees some exploration by Chinese and Muslim geographers, while European maps of India remain very sketchy. A prominent medieval cartographer was Persian geographer Abu Rayhan Biruni (973–1048) who visited India and studied the country's geography extensively.
European maps become more accurate with the Age of Exploration and Portuguese India from the 16th century. The first modern maps were produced by Survey of India, established in 1767 by the British East India Company. Survey of India remains in continued existence as the official mapping authority of the Republic of India.
Prehistory
Joseph E. Schwartzberg (2008) proposes that the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization (c. 2500–1900 BCE) may have known "cartographic activity" based on a number of excavated surveying instruments and measuring rods and that the use of large scale constructional plans, cosmological drawings, and cartographic material was known in India with some regularity since the Vedic period (1st millennium BCE). 'Though not numerous, a number of map-like graffiti appear among the thousands of Stone Age Indian cave paintings; and at least one complex Mesolithic diagram is believed to be a representation of the cosmos.'
Susan Gole (1990) comments on the cartographic traditions in early India:
Antiquity
Cartography of India as a part of the greater continent of Asia develops in Classical Antiquity.
In Greek cartography, India appears as a remote land on the eastern fringe of Asia in the 5th century BCE (Hecataeus of Miletus). More detailed knowledge becomes available after the conquests of Alexander the Great, and the 3rd-century BCE geographer Eratosthenes has a clearer idea of the size and location of India. By the 1st century, at least the western coast of India is well known to Hellenistic geography, with itineraries such as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Marinus and Ptolemy had some knowledge of the Indian Ocean (which they considered a sea) but their Taprobana (Sri Lanka) was vastly too large and the Indian peninsula much reduced. They also had little knowledge of the interior of the country.
Native Indian cartographic traditions before the Hellenistic period remain rudimentary. Early forms of cartography in India included legendary paintings; maps of locations described in Indian epic poetry, for example the Ramayana. These works contained descriptions of legendary places, and often even described the nature of the mythological inhabitants of a particular location. Early Indian cartography showed little knowledge of scale, the important parts of the map were shown to be larger than others (Gole 1990). Indian cartographic traditions also covered the locations of the Pole star, and other constellations of use. These charts may have been in use by the beginning of the Common Era for purposes of navigation. Other early maps in India include the Udayagiri wall sculpture—made under the Gupta empire in 400 CE—showing the meeting of the Ganges and the Yamuna.
Middle Ages
The 8th-century poet and dramatist Bhavabhuti, in Act 1 of the Uttararamacarita, described paintings which indicated geographical regions. In the 20th century, over 200 medieval Indian maps were studied in the compilation of a history of cartography. Also considered in the study were copper-plate text inscriptions on which the boundaries of land, granted to the Brahman priests of India by their patrons, were described in detail. The descriptions indicated good geographical knowledge and in one case over 75 details of the land granted have been found. The Chinese records of the Tang dynasty show that a map of the neighboring Indian region was gifted to Wang Hiuen-tse by its king.