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)

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.