Waldseemüller

Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470 – c. 1520) was a German cartographer and geographer associated with the scholarly circle at Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in the early 16th century. He is best known for his role in producing the Universalis Cosmographia, a world map published in 1507 in collaboration with Matthias Ringmann. The work synthesized contemporary knowledge of Asia with discoveries from Atlantic voyages and reflected the transition from medieval to modern geography.

Most notably, the 1507 map introduced the name America for the lands of the Western Hemisphere. The name arose in the accompanying Cosmographiae Introductio, which argued for naming the newly identified land after Amerigo Vespucci’s Latinized given name Americus, feminized to America. The map also presented the Americas as distinct from Asia, and it circulated widely in the early years of the age of exploration.

Little is known about Waldseemüller’s life after 1507, and his exact date of death remains uncertain. He left a lasting imprint on cartography through the introduction of the name America and through a method of combining traditional geography with new discoveries that shaped subsequent mapmaking.

Original sheets and later reproductions of the Waldseemüller map survive in several libraries, including the Library of Congress in the United States and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. The work is regarded as a milestone in the history of cartography and the European understanding of the world.