National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Monday, November 23, 2009

Photo: "Chinese Columbus" Map Likely Fake, Experts Say


Email to a Friend	<< Back to Full Story

Antiquities collector Liu Gang unveiled this map in Beijing last week, saying it proves that Chinese seafarer Zheng He discovered America more than 70 years before Christopher Columbus set foot in the New World.

But cartographers and historians are casting doubt on the claim. One expert suggests that it could be a copy of a French world map dating to the 1600s.

Photograph by Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images