This is an image of the Waldseemüller map, or “Universalis Cosmographia,” drawn by Martin Waldseemüller in 1507. It was one of the first maps to chart latitude and longitude precisely and was the first map to use the name “America”. There is only one known extant version of this map, which was purchased by the US Library of Congress from Prince Johannes zu Waldburg-Wolfegg for 10 Million Dollars. It now hangs permanently at the US Library of Congress.
The map was the subject of a recent program of NPR’s OnPoint in which host Tom Ashbrook interviewed Toby Lester, contributing editor at The Atlantic and author of “The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name.”
