Waldseemller map - Article Example

The Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map The Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map online is divided into twelve sections, divided into 18 by 24.5 inches (46 cm × 62 cm). When each of the section is assembled, it portrays one of four horizontals and three vertically. The Waldseemüller map uses Ptolemaic map projection in a modified way to curve the meridians that represent the entire earth’s surface. There is a miniature world map in the upper part of the main Waldseemüller map that represents an alternative view of the world to some extent (Hessler 34).

In comparison to most of other maps recorded in the 1500s such as Henricus Martellus or Martin Behaim maps that used the Geography (Ptolemy) and the Caveri planisphere, the Waldseemüller 1507 map gets right most of the mapping of the world mapping and tells us much about European knowledge of the world in the early sixteenth century. While the other maps during that time are ambiguous in representing the eastern coastline for Asia and Europe, the Waldseemüller 1507 map gets right by making a distinction those coastline from the American coastline (Hessler 63).

The Waldseemüller map designates the existence of the trans-Atlantic region in Spain and the Asian Ptolemy as displayed on the Behaim globe representation in 1492. The Waldseemüller map of 1507 is today credited basically as the mother of all the other maps we use today as it has been used as a credible source for those maps. Waldseemüller’s world map is an important product of research effort that spans from the sixteen century. It was developed using resourceful data gathered during the era of the Amerigo Vespucci’s voyages between 1501 and 1502.

Waldseemüller christened the "American" land in recognition of Vespucci’s data by uncovering a new continent namely America as a result of the Columbus voyages and other late fifteen century explorers (Hessler 75). The Waldseemüller’s map therefore, supported Vespucci’s revolutionary concept by portraying the New World. This is what the map tells us about European knowledge of the world in the early sixteenth because prior to it, the separate continent which the map represents was unknown to the Europeans.

The map was the first manuscript that was printed clearly depicting a separate Western Hemisphere which it distinct from the Pacific Ocean and the African coastline (Hessler 76). The map gets all these aspects right and represents a huge spring forward in knowledge across Europe and it forever changed the European understanding which still remains today that the world is divided into three parts namely Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Waldseemüller map has however some distortions that this paper seeks to look at.

This map has apparently distortions regarding the South American borderline. The first panel shows the Cuba (Isabella Insula) and Hispaniola (Spagnolla Insula) which is the Northern New World.   In recent times, geographical researchers and experts have taken to task to shed some light on the distortions of Martin Waldseemüller’s shape of South America(Hessler 84). These researchers have calculated the correlation coefficients and analysed regression curves, which they have quantitatively compared to the geometries of the Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map.

The finding is that Waldseemüller’s map has used polynomial distorting algorithms and regression analysis applications to the coastlines of South America. High correlations were established between the shape of their study and the shape provided by the Waldseemüller’s map (Hessler 85). The conclusion of these researches is that Waldseemüller’s map may have used empirical data particularly in mapping the South American continent (Hessler 86).Works CitedHessler, John. The Naming of America: Martin Waldseemullers 1507 World Map and the Cosmographiae Introduction. London. GILES (February 1, 2008), 34-86.