| Article ID: | iaor200971933 |
| Country: | Belgium |
| Volume: | 14 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Start Page Number: | 67 |
| End Page Number: | 81 |
| Publication Date: | Jun 2000 |
| Journal: | Studies in Locational Analysis |
| Authors: | Garcia Francisco R Fernandez, Albandoz Justo Puerto, Alcon Francisco Jimenez, Prieto Luis C Munoz |
| Keywords: | transportation: water, history |
We show how the first harbour-finding charts used between the 13th and 17th centuries by sailors, which are called ‘Portolan charts’, are strongly related to the gauge functions which we use in location theory. This type of chart is not a projection of the global sphere on a plane but is drawn as a usual topographical work, with the help of the magnetic needle and the estimation of the distances. This corresponds to the polygon and its directions used by the gauge functions.