page_title: Comparison diagram
section_title: First comparative charts
hierarchical_section_title: Comparison diagram / History / First comparative charts
caption_attribution_description: English: This is one of the earliest and most interesting takes on the comparative heights of principal mountains theme. Comparative mountains charts first appeared in the late 18th and early 19th century. Initially these charts focused on Europe or even signal countries, but by the early 19th century the explorations of the world's great peaks had reached a point where such a chart could be composed on a global level. John Thompson, the preeminent Scottish cartographer of the period, introduced this chart, one of the first and most interesting of the genre. Covering both the eastern and western hemispheres, this chart shows not only the heights of mountains, but also compares them to important buildings, cities, vegetation limits, and even fauna. Thompson divides his map in to the western hemisphere, on the left, and the eastern hemisphere on the right. In the Western Hemisphere, he identifies the Ecuadorian peak of Chimborazo at the highest mountains - the great Chilean peaks had not yet been discovered. Just below the summit of Chimborazo, a tiny speck represents a rare Andean Condor in flight with a highest altitude of 21,000 feet. About halfway down on the left side of Chimborazo, another little speck, this time in the shape of a man, indicated the highest elevation attained by the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Also identified are various high evolution towns and cities including Mexico City, Lake Toluca, Quito, and Caracas, among others. On the right hand side of Thompson's map chart, the behemoths of the Eastern Hemisphere dwarf the mountains of the west. Here, Nepal's Dhaulagiri, 27,677 feet, is identified as the world's greatest mountain. Everest and many of the other great Himalayan peaks had not yet been discovered - today we know that Dhaulagiri, though certainly a mighty peak, is only 8th. Engraved by the firm of W. and D. Lizars for John Thomson's 1817 edition of Thomson's New General Atlas .
context_page_description: Comparison diagram or comparative diagram is a general type of diagram, in which a comparison is made between two or more objects, phenomena or groups of data. A comparison diagram or can offer qualitative and/or quantitative information. This type of diagram can also be called comparison chart or comparison chart. The diagram itself is sometimes referred to as a cluster diagram.
context_section_description: In the 1810s the first formal comparative mountains charts emerged. Early examples are:
  Charles Smith's Comparative View of the Heights of the Principal Mountains &c. In The World, published in London in 1816
  John Thomson's A Comparative View of the Heights of the Principal Mountains and other Elevations in the World. published in the 1817 edition of Thomson's New General Atlas.
  Another popular subject became the comparative views of the lengths of the principal rivers in one country or from all over the world. In 1822 William Home Lizars presented a map, entitled "Comparative View of the Lengths of the Principal Rivers of Scotland." And in 1826 
  Anthony Finley (1790–1840) published a "Comparative Map of the Principle Rivers of the World." 
  Other types of comparison charts would soon appear. For example, the "Comprehensive atlas: geographical, historical & commercial," published by William D. Ticknor in 1835 contained a series of different comparison diagrams and charts on:
  Size of Continents, Oceans, Islands
  Heights of Mountains
  Lengths of Rivers
  Size of animal
  Size of planets
  Heights of monuments
  Height of edifices
  Different countries
  Other popular themes in 19th century comparison diagrams were the sizes of lakes, the lengths of waterfalls, and the sizes of Islands.
  One of the first maps to compare the lengths of rivers was the "Map of the Principal Rivers Throughout the World. Comparative Lengths of the Principal Rivers throughout the World." by the political economist Henry Charles Carey and Isaac Lea published their 1822 "A Complete Historical, Chronological, and Geographical American Atlas." In this maps the lengths of the rivers, were presented in a bar chart with horizontal bars. In 1826 the same data was presented in a bar chart with vertical bars, entitled "Table of the comparative lengths of the principal Rivers throughout the World" (see image).
caption: Thomson's Map of the Comparative Heights of the World's Great Mountains, 1817
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