Piri Reis. Piri Reis (Turkish: Pîrî Reis or Muhyiddin Pîrî Bey also known as Hacı Ahmed Muhiddin Piri; "Reis" being a military rank) was an Ottoman admiral, geographer, and cartographer born between 1465 and 1470.
He was executed in 1553.[1] He is primarily known today for his maps and charts collected in his Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Navigation), a book that contains detailed information on navigation, as well as very accurate charts (for their time) 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 the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. His world map is the oldest known Turkish atlas showing the New World, and one of the oldest maps of America still in existence anywhere (the oldest known map of America that is still in existence is the map drawn by Juan de la Cosa in 1500). Piri Reis' map is centered on the Sahara at the latitude of the Tropic of Cancer.[2]
Europe. Africa.