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Up until the 18th century, maps were often decorated with fanciful beasts and monsters, at the expense of accurate details about places. French mapmakers of the 1700s and 1800s encouraged the use of more scientific methods in the art they called cartographie. The French word cartographie (the science of making maps), from which we get our English word cartography, was created from carte, meaning "map," and -graphie, meaning "representation by." Around the same time we adopted cartography in the mid-19th century, we also created our word for a mapmaker, cartographer.
Examples of cartographer in a Sentence
Stuart Berman, Pitchfork, 4 June 2026
Although centered around the cartographer’s task of conducting the Ordnance Survey of 1865, there are flashbacks to the Great Hunger in the 1840s, as well as meditations on movement within and out of the country, taking readers to Italy, Canada, and then back to that unnamed Irish peninsula.
—Nora Biette-Timmons, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 June 2026
Above the fireplace hangs an eighteenth-century map of Africa by the French cartographer Guillaume de l’Isle—the first engraving to accurately depict the continent’s coordinates.
—Laura E. Helton, Literary Hub, 20 Apr. 2026
That set off an arms race for cartographers.
—Michael Van Sickler, The Orlando Sentinel, 29 Mar. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Cartographer.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cartographer. Accessed 17 Jun. 2026.
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cartographer
noun
