Island of California

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Island of California (Spanish: Isla de California) refers to the long-held global misconception, dating from the 16th century, that the California region was not part of mainland North America but rather a large island separated from the continent by a strait now known to be the Gulf of California. One of the most famous cartographic errors in history, it was propagated on many maps during the 17th and 18th centuries, despite contradictory evidence from various explorers. The legend was initially infused with the idea that California was a terrestrial paradise, like the Garden of Eden or Atlantis populated entirely by Amazonian women and protected by griffins. This mapping error was not a one-off event. From the mid-1500s to the late 1700s great controversy surrounded the geography of California. For instance, a Spanish map from 1548 depicts California as a peninsula, Historian Dora Beale Polk argued that the belief was perpetuated through "uncritical repetition", and that California appeared...

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