In the early 1500s, a humanist circle in Saint-Dié (Lorraine) set out to update European geographic knowledge using new voyage reports. Martin Waldseemüller became the main cartographer for this project, which aimed to combine classical learning with fresh discoveries. This collaboration set the stage for the 1507 map and its influential naming choice.
A printed world map by Giovanni Contarini appeared in 1506, reflecting Europe’s fast-changing picture of Atlantic discoveries. Such printed maps helped spread new geographic claims quickly, because they could be reproduced and shared. This print culture mattered directly for the impact of Waldseemüller’s 1507 wall map.
In 1507, Waldseemüller also issued woodcut globe gores—curved map segments meant to be cut out and pasted onto a sphere. These gores repeated key ideas from the wall map, including the new naming and a global, 360° view. The globe format made the message portable for collectors and classrooms, even though few physical globes survive today.
In April 1507, Waldseemüller published the large, twelve-sheet world wall map titled Universalis Cosmographia. It combined Ptolemaic mapping methods with newer information from Iberian voyages. The map’s size and printed format made it a major tool for spreading a new world picture beyond small scholarly circles.
The 1507 wall map is widely recognized as the first map to print the name “America.” On the main map, the name appears on what the makers understood as the southern part of the newly described lands. This single labeling choice became a turning point, because later mapmakers copied it and the name spread.
Contemporary evidence and later scholarship indicate the 1507 wall map was printed in a substantial run (often cited as about 1,000 copies). Even though only one complete copy is known to survive, a wide initial distribution helps explain how the new name could circulate quickly. In other words, printing scale mattered as much as cartographic design.
A companion booklet, Cosmographiae Introductio, was issued in 1507 to accompany the map and globe materials. It argued for naming the new lands after Amerigo Vespucci, reflecting the authors’ belief that Vespucci recognized these lands as a “new” part of the world rather than Asia. The text helped legitimize the map’s naming choice for readers.
In 1513, Waldseemüller contributed to the Strasbourg edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia, which paired classical geography with “modern” maps. This was a key moment in atlas-making, because it put new discoveries into an authoritative scholarly framework. It also shows Waldseemüller revisiting how to present the western lands in print.
By 1513, Waldseemüller’s publications no longer emphasized “America” in the same way as the 1507 wall map. Some later presentations reflect Columbus-centered interpretations and use different labels such as “unknown land.” This shift suggests the original naming was not universally accepted, even by its first promoter.
In 1516, Waldseemüller published the Carta Marina, another large, multi-sheet world map meant to be more up to date and more like a navigational sea chart. It omits the word “America” and, in some ways, pulls the western lands back toward Asia. The change shows how uncertain—and politically sensitive—New World geography and naming still were.
After centuries out of public view, the surviving copy of Waldseemüller’s 1507 map was rediscovered in 1901 in the library of Wolfegg Castle in southern Germany. The rediscovery mattered because it brought back direct evidence of the first printed use of “America.” It also allowed historians to compare the 1507 map with Waldseemüller’s later revisions.
On June 18, 2003, the Library of Congress announced it had completed a $10 million purchase of the only known surviving copy of the 1507 map. The acquisition secured long-term preservation and public access to a landmark document in world cartography. It also reinforced the map’s modern reputation as a key artifact in how “America” became a standard place-name.
Waldseemüller's Universalis Cosmographia and the naming of America (1507–1516)