Many people find it remarkable that maps have survived for over three or four hundred years.
The size of paper on which maps were printed was determined by the size of the printing press. Large maps were made by individually printing the sheets and then gluing them together. Paper was first made in Asia about two thousand years ago, and the art of papermaking evolved gradually. More than a thousand years passed before it was introduced into Europe during the thirteenth century. There, paper was produced almost entirely from linen and cotton rags pulped in water.