page_title: Topography of the Moon
section_title: Historical lunar maps
hierarchical_section_title: Topography of the Moon / Historical lunar maps
caption_attribution_description: Map of the Moon, Andrees Allgemeiner Handatlas, 1st Edition, Leipzig (Germany) 1881, Page 4
context_page_description: The topography of the Moon has been measured by the methods of laser altimetry and stereo image analysis, including data obtained during the Clementine mission. The most visible topographic feature is the giant far side South Pole-Aitken basin, which possesses the lowest elevations of the Moon. The highest elevations are found just to the north-east of this basin, and it has been suggested that this area might represent thick ejecta deposits that were emplaced during an oblique South Pole-Aitken basin impact event. Other large impact basins, such as the maria Imbrium, Serenitatis, Crisium, Smythii, and Orientale, also possess regionally low elevations and elevated rims.
  Another distinguishing feature of the Moon's shape is that the elevations are on average about 1.9 km higher on the far side than the near side. If it is assumed that the crust is in isostatic equilibrium, and that the density of the crust is everywhere the same, then the higher elevations would be associated with a thicker crust.
context_section_description: The following is a list of historically-notable lunar
  maps and atlases, arranged in chronological order by
  publication date.
  Michel van Langren, engraved map, 1645.
  Johannes Hevelius, Selenographia, 1647.
  Giovanni Riccioli and Francesco Grimaldi, Almagestum novum, 1651.
  Giovanni Domenico Cassini, engraved map, 1679 (reprinted in 1787).
  Tobias Mayer, engraved map, 1749, published in 1775.
  Johann Hieronymus Schröter, Selenotopografisches Fragmenten, 1st volume 1791, 2nd volume 1802.
  John Russell, engraved images, 1805.
  Wilhelm Lohrmann, Topographie der sichtbaren Mondoberflaeche, Leipzig, 1824.
  Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich Mädler, Mappa Selenographica totam Lunae hemisphaeram visibilem complectens, Berlin, 1834-36.
  Edmund Neison, The Moon, London, 1876.
  Julius Schmidt, Charte der Gebirge des Mondes, Berlin, 1878.
  Thomas Gwyn Elger, The Moon, London, 1895.
  Johann Krieger, Mond-Atlas, 1898. Two  additional volumes were published posthumously in 1912 by the Vienna Academy of Sciences.
  Walter Goodacre, Map of the Moon, London, 1910.
  Mary A. Blagg and Karl Müller, Named Lunar Formations, 2 volumes, London, 1935.
  Philipp Fauth, Unser Mond, Bremen, 1936.
  Hugh P. Wilkins, 300-inch Moon map, 1951.
  Gerard Kuiper et al., Photographic Lunar Atlas, Chicago, 1960.
  Ewen A. Whitaker et al., Rectified Lunar Atlas, Tucson, 1963.
  Hermann Fauth and Philipp Fauth (posthumously), Mondatlas, 1964.
  Gerard Kuiper et al., System of Lunar Craters, 1966.
  Yu I. Efremov et al., Atlas Obratnoi Storony Luny, Moscow, 1967–1975.
  NASA, Lunar Topographic Orthophotomaps, 1978.
  Antonín Rükl, Atlas of the Moon, 2004.
caption: Map of the Moon from the Andrees Allgemeiner Handatlas (1881) by Richard Andree
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