Spotlight: Expanding People’s Horizons: Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map

Martin Waldseemüller, Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioru[m] que lustrationes, 1507. Map, 128 x 233 cm, sheets 46 x 63 cm or smaller. (Library of Congress Collection, Washington, D.C.)

German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 world map was the first map to depict a separate Western hemisphere with the Pacific as a separate ocean. Drawing heavily upon data gathered during Amerigo Vespucci's 1501-02 voyages to the New World, and in recognition of Vespucci's understanding that a new continent had been discovered, Waldseemüller christened the new lands "America." 

This is the only known surviving copy of the first edition of the map, of which it is believed 1,000 copies were printed. By showing the newly-found American land mass, the map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge – one that forever changed the European understanding of a world previously divided into just three parts: Europe, Asia, and Africa.