In the first edition the text filled nearly 850 folio pages. It was a large edition containing a much-reduced version of the Carta Marina and hundreds of illustrations to accompany the text.

The Historia has appeared in many editions in several languages, from the mid-sixteenth century to the present. The book was translated into French for an edition of 1561; the next year it was published in Dutch twice, in Antwerp and in Amsterdam. A beautiful folio edition in Italian was published in 1565;

the first German edition was published in 1567. Many Latin editions were published in the early period. Many of these editions were abridgements of the original text, some without illustrations. The first English edition did not appear until 1638, when an abridged edition, not illustrated, appeared in London.

Recently the Hakluyt Society published an English translation of the entire Historia in three volumes. This new English translation by Peter Fisher and Humphrey Higgens, edited by Peter Foote, offers excellent opportunities to better understand the map of Scandinavia that Olaus Magnus created.

These and many more editions of the Historia demonstrate that the goal of Olaus Magnus to make Scandinavia better known in the sixteenth century was accomplished.