Historical Conceptions and Modern Perspectives of the Flat Earth

Flat Earth is an archaic and scientifically disproven conception of the Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat-Earth cosmography, and the model has undergone a recent resurgence as a conspiracy theory in the 21st century. Despite the scientific facts and obvious effects of Earth's sphericity, pseudoscientific flat-Earth conspiracy theories persist.

Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Cosmology

In early Egyptian and Mesopotamian thought, the world was portrayed as a disk floating in the ocean. The Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts of ancient Egypt show a similar cosmography; Nun (the Ocean) encircled "dry lands" or "islands". Similarly, the Israelites imagined the Earth to be a disc floating on water with an arched firmament above it that separated the Earth from the heavens. The sky was a solid dome with the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars embedded in it.

Early Greek Philosophy and Poetic Traditions

The early Greek cosmological view of a flat Earth persisted among most pre-Socratics. Several pre-Socratic philosophers believed that the world was flat: Thales (c. 550 BC), Leucippus (c. 440 BC), and Democritus (c. 460–370 BC). Specifically, Thales thought that the Earth floated in water like a log, while Anaximander believed that the Earth was a short cylinder with a flat, circular top.

Poets also contributed to this vision. Both Homer and Hesiod described a disc cosmography on the Shield of Achilles. This poetic tradition of an Earth-encircling sea (Oceanus) and a disc also appears in the works of Stasinus of Cyprus, Mimnermus, Aeschylus, and Apollonius Rhodius.

The Transition to a Spherical Earth

The idea of a spherical Earth appeared in ancient Greek philosophy with Pythagoras in the 6th century BC. In the early 4th century BC, Plato wrote about a spherical Earth, and by about 330 BC, his former student Aristotle had provided strong empirical evidence for a spherical Earth. Knowledge of the Earth's global shape gradually began to spread beyond the Hellenistic world. By the early period of the Christian Church, the spherical view was widely held, with some notable exceptions.

Global Perspectives and Historical Myths

Ancient Chinese scholars consistently describe the Earth as flat, and this perception remained unchanged until their encounters with Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century. In the Islamic world, scholars in early Islam maintained that the Earth is flat; however, since the 9th century, Muslim scholars have tended to believe in a spherical Earth.

Regarding Western history, it is a historical myth that medieval Europeans generally thought the Earth was flat. This myth was created in the 17th century by Protestants to argue against Catholic teachings and gained currency in the 19th century.

Modern Belief and Statistics

Since the 2010s, belief in a flat Earth has increased, both as membership of modern flat Earth societies and as unaffiliated individuals using social media. However, as shown in the data below, firm belief in a flat Earth remains statistically rare.

Group / Category	Statistical Data & Findings
18- to 24-year-old Americans	82% agreed with the statement "I have always believed the world is round"
General Acceptance	Firm belief in a flat Earth is rare, with less than 2% acceptance in all age groups