Waldseemüller map

Uncommon card · No. 195027

The Waldseemüller map or Universalis Cosmographia ("Universal Cosmography") is a printed wall map of the world by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the name "America". The name America is placed on South America on the main map. As explained in Cosmographiae Introductio, the name was bestowed in honor of the Italian Amerigo Vespucci. The map also was first to depict the Americas as a distinct landmass separated from Asia by the Pacific Ocean. The map is drafted on a modification of Ptolemy's second projection, expanded to accommodate the Americas and the high latitudes. A single copy of the map survives, presently housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Waldseemüller also created globe gores, printed maps designed to be cut out and pasted onto spheres to form globes of the Earth. The wall map, and his globe gores of the same date, depict the American continents in two pieces. These depictions...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Martin Waldseemüller, Public domain