' was first published in 1513 by Johannes Schott in Strasbourg (see SC-TM-1513-Waldseemuller-PWorldMap) and reissued in 1520 using the same woodblocks. Schott (1477–1550) was a printer of works of some significance in Strassburg. He was responsible for printing 

’s ‘Margarita Philosophica’ (1503–1508), Martin Luther’s ‘Invocavit Sermons’ (1523), Hans Weiditz and Otto Brunfels ‘Herbarium Vivae Icones’ (1520s–1530s), and other notable Humanist and Reformist works.

This map of the world, the first in the ‘Supplementum’, is a radical departure from the Ptolemaic model. It is the third available printed map to show the discovery of the 

, labelled as 'Terra Incognita' in the region of the coast of Brazil. Shirley (2001) proposes that when work on the atlas started, this map was one of the first to be cut, so that the information given in the Americas dates from what was known around 1506. 
Cuba and Hispaniola are the only named islands of the West Indies with a large landmass in South America, this from the discoveries of Pedro Alvares Cabral. Further north, Newfoundland and the discoveries of John Cabot are marked as an incomplete, unlabelled landmass. In Europe, Greenland is connected to Scandinavia as a peninsula and the British Isles are substantially altered from their Ptolemaic predecessors. Early Portuguese voyages likely provided the sources for the outline of Africa and the newly drawn outlines of Arabia, the Indian sub-continent and the Malay Peninsula although there is still confusion between it and the ‘peninsula’ of China. 

One of the most striking features of 

’s ‘Admiral’s Map’, is the proliferation of rhumb lines. A conventional feature of traditional nautical charts of the time, particularly of portolan charts, they are a simple system of lines that radiate out in standard compass directions (or directions of the traditional winds) from points organized in one or two large circles. 

The so-called Admiral’s Map is the first of two maps in 

’s atlas (see also SC-TM-1513-Waldseemuller-PWorldMap) that relate 

 discoveries, and is referred to in the index as the ‘Hydrographia sive 

a marina’, and in the ‘Ad Lectorem’ as the ‘

a Marina’, where it is clearly stated that the geographical facts have been made known ‘through the most authentic voyages of a former Admiral of the most serene King of Portugal, Ferdinand, and those of other explorers’.

The map was created for inclusion in the 1520 Strassburg edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s ‘

’, signalling the beginning of the section of twenty modern maps that were added to the twenty-seven Ptolemaic originals. This world map gives a more accurate outline of eastern Asia than Ptolemy. It contains Greenland, which is attached to Europe, but only a tiny section of North America, meant to represent either Newfoundland or Labrador. The coastline of South America is left unfinished, and only five place names are given.

Previously, In 1507, Waldseemüller produced one of the most influential maps ever printed; his wall map of the world was the first to label the 

 as ‘America’. Despite dropping the name ‘America’ in subsequent editions in 1513 and this 1520 map, Waldseemüller’s term was adopted by later mapmakers such as 

 and Gerhard Mercator who ensured its survival.

'. It is known as ‘The Admiral's Map’ because Waldseemüller attributes Christopher Columbus, the ‘Admiral of the Ocean Sea’ as a source of cartographic information.

This influential work was accompanied by twenty ‘modern’ maps in the '

', which were a radical update to Ptolemy's traditional maps and expanded on the Ptolemaic projection that had dominated earlier European cartography. The edition was hugely influential on other mapmakers, such as 

Known as the ‘Admiral’s Map’, this is only the third printed map to show the European discovery of the Americas. As the title suggests, 

 has abandoned Ptolemaic conventions, thereby holding out the tantalising prospect that lands of the 

Double-page navigational woodcut map of the world

Waldseemüller's 'Admiral's Map'