EXPLORE THE WORLD OF ANTIQUE MAPS

Willem Blaeu (born 1599) and his sons Joan and Cornelius had a greater output of atlases and maps than any other publisher. They issued globes, large wall maps, sea charts, pilots, six large folio atlases of town plans, and 12 volumes of land atlases. The reverse of many of the maps had descriptions. These were printed in various languages. Blaeu senior was hydrographer to the Dutch East India Company. His map of the East Indies shows India too narrow, but Sri Lanka is nearly correct. The Straits of Malacca are well surveyed because of their importance to ships sailing to China. Only a tentative mark indicates Australia. The example illustrated here is circa 1660.