First Map of the American
Continents
Sebastian Münster (1489-1552)
Die neuwen Inseln so hinder
Hispanien gegen Orient bey dem land India ligen
[fifth state].
[Basel: 1550]
Woodcut print map
Geography & Map Division
Hauslab Collection, transferred from the Air Force, 1975 (21A.4)
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Münster, one of the most prolific geographers in the sixteenth
century, was the first map maker to publish separate maps of the
four continents, which originally appeared in his 1540 Basel edition
of Ptolemy's Geographia. Up until this time, the only
printed maps showing the European discoveries in the new world
were world maps, but with this publication he issued a map showing
just the American continent. Although he boldly labeled this irregularly-shaped
land mass "Novis orbis" and "die Nüw Welt," Münster included
a reference to America, thus perpetuating a place name that originated
in 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller, another German geographer.
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