Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters

I should point out that this book was originally written in Greek in the 2nd century. Not much is known about Ptolemy other than he was an Alexandrian Greek who wrote on astronomy, astrology, optics, geography and music.It is the pinacle of ancient geographic theory. Ptolemy knew the Mediterranean Basin quite well as it encompassed the Roman Empire. Ptolemy lists provinces, tribes, cities, island, rivers and other important features of his world. All this is fairly well documented as a number of geographic treatise survive (but none as extensive as Ptolemy's).The theoretical part discusses the faults of Ptolemy's predecessors, the division of the world into climatic zones and the use of latitudes/longitudes as a method of finding locations.The most interesting aspect of this book is discovering the limits of ancient knowledge. Ptolemy knows a fair bit about Arabia, India and Sri Lanka but little beyond that. He knows about China but only vaguely. Ptolemy knows little of Africa south of the Sahara. The horn of Africa is the best known due to Red Sea trade.FYI - There is a fuller translation of Ptolemy that includes reproduction of his maps.

It does not contains the list of towns and places (only Gaul) from Ptolemy's Geography.

If you do not read Latin, this book is for you.

all is fine