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, notably including ancient near eastern cosmology. The model has undergone a recent resurgence as a conspiracy theory.
Illustration based on that of a 12th-century Asian cosmographer
Semi-circular shadow of Earth on the Moon during a partial lunar eclipse
An image of Thorntonbank Wind Farm (near the Belgian coast) with the lower parts of the more distant towers increasingly hidden by the horizon, demonstrating the curvature of the Earth
Cosmas Indicopleustes' world view – flat Earth in a Tabernacle
Spherical Earth or Earth's curvature refers to the approximation of the figure of the Earth as a sphere.
The earliest documented mention of the concept dates from around the 5th century BC, when it appears in the writings of Greek philosophers. In the 3rd century BC, Hellenistic astronomy established the roughly spherical shape of Earth as a physical fact and calculated the Earth's circumference. This knowledge was gradually adopted throughout the Old World during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. A practical demonstration of Earth's sphericity was achieved by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano's circumnavigation (1519–1522).
Image from space: The curved surface of the spherical planet Earth
Medieval artistic representation of a spherical Earth – with compartments representing earth, air, and water (c. 1400)
The Erdapfel, the oldest surviving terrestrial globe (1492/1493)
