Catalan Atlas of 1375 and Hormuz around 1300

Abstract. In about 1375, Jewish cartographers from Palma (de Mallorca), Cresques Abraham and his son Jehudà, have produced an outstanding work of the Majorcan cartographic school of the fourteenth century, the Catalan Atlas. The atlas contained the latest information on Africa, Asia, and China, therefore it was considered to be the most complete picture of geographical knowledge as it stood in the later Middle Ages. There was also some up-to-date information. One of the most important innovations has concerned the port of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and its shift from the mainland (Old Hormuz) to the island of Jerun (since then named Hormuz). My paper compares information about Hormuz in the Catalan Atlas with that in the original texts just before and after the relocation of the city and port.