Ptolemy's map of Ireland

Ptolemy's map of Ireland is a part of his "first European map" (depicting the British Isles) in the series of maps included in his Geography, which he compiled in the second century AD in Roman Egypt and which is the oldest surviving map of Ireland. Ptolemy's own map does not survive, but is known from manuscript copies made during the Middle Ages and from the text of the Geography, which gives coordinates and place names. Ptolemy almost certainly never visited Ireland, but compiled the map based on military, trader, and traveller reports, along with his own mathematical calculations. Given the creation process, the time period involved, and the fact that the Greeks and Romans had limited contact with Ireland, it is considered remarkably accurate.

The westernmost portion of Ptolemy's "first European map" from a Greek manuscript edition of Geography, dated c. 1400, once owned by Charles Burney and now in the British Library, depicting Ireland. The island is labelled in Ancient Greek: Ἰουερνία νῆσος Βρεττανική, romanizedIouernía nê̄sos Brettanikḗ, lit.'Hibernia, British island'.