's projection with a massive southern continent attached to New Guinea, with the toponyms ‘Beach’ and ‘Psittacorum regio’ taken from Marco Polo's travel memoirs. North America has the westward bulge characteristic of the time, with the ‘Strait of Anian’ noted. Korea is shown as an island and Japan is in a kite-like shape.

The border of vignettes provides information on terrestrial and celestial cycles. The vertical borders contain allegorical representations of the four elements and the four seasons; they are linked by the zodiac symbols in each of the vignettes of the seasons. The zodiac signs are arranged in their seasonal triplicities, which represent one element giving way to another; for example, the spring triplicity of Aries, Taurus, and Gemini represents water becoming fire.

The upper border shows the ‘septem planeta’, including the sun and moon, as classical deities with their planetary symbols riding in chariots, suggesting their orbit. At the bottom are the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World: the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Colossus straddling the harbour at Rhodes, the Pyramids, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Temple of Diana, the Statue of Jupiter, and the Lighthouse at Alexandria. Two small projections of the poles appear in each corner, there are three decorative cartouches, one concerning the discovery of North America.

 (1571–1638) was the founder of a cartographic dynasty, and the finest mapmaker of the Golden Age of Dutch cartography. He studied astronomy and instrument-making under 

 in his tower at Uranienborg in 1594 before moving to Amsterdam. He eventually established his own shop in 1605 close to his contemporaries and rivals 

 and Jacob Colom, publishing his first maps of the world and continents, in 1606. He designed a completely original globe in 1599, and a pair of twenty-six-inch globes in 1616. In 1630, Willem and his son Johannes published the ‘

 and Gerhard Mercator. This was followed by their ‘

 Maior’, the largest and grandest atlas of its time.

’s world map was first published separately in 1606 as a reduced version of his large world map of 1605. Its clarity, detail, and striking classical ornamentation make it one of the most influential world maps of the early seventeenth century. Blaeu would go on to found a family dynasty of Dutch cartographers and is widely regarded as the finest mapmaker of the Golden Age of Dutch cartography.

The world map is shown on the newly devised Mercator projection with the most up-to-date geographic information. It is embellished with elaborate border vignettes showing terrestrial and celestial cycles, allegorical representations of the four elements and the four seasons, mythological characters, and the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World

’s world map was first published separately in 1606 as a reduced version of his large world map of 1605. Its clarity, detail, and striking classical ornamentation make it “one of the supreme examples of the map maker's art” (Shirley 2004, 225).

Blaeu's World Map