Piri Reis (full name Hadji Muhiddin Piri Ibn Hadji Mehmed ) – was an Ottoman-Turkish admiral and cartographer born 1470 in Karaman and died in 1554. He is primarily known today for his maps and charts collected in his Kitab-i Bahriye ( Book of Navigation ), a book which contains detailed information on navigation as well as extremely accurate charts describing the important ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea . He gained fame as a cartographer when a small part of his first world map (prepared in 1513 ) was discovered in 1929 at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul The most striking characteristic of the first world map (1513) of Piri Reis, however, is the level of accuracy in positioning the continents (particularly the relation between Africa and South America ) which was unparalleled for its time. Even maps drawn decades later did not have such accurate positioning and proportions; a quality which can be observed in other maps of Piri Reis in his Kitab-i Bahriye ( Book of Navigation ). Piri Reis' map is centered in the Sahara at the Tropic of Cancer latitude, and some believe it's also the oldest surviving map of Antarctica , despite being drawn more than 3 centuries before the official discovery of that continent