Apparently Waldseemüller changed his mind about the name, that
he had put on his map —"America".
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
His later maps — the edition of Ptolemy of 1513, for example — showed "Terra Incognita" where he had formerly placed the name "America."
The name "America" does not appear on Waldseemüller's Carta Marina of 1516.
But, it was too late. The use of the name "America" proliferated in maps made on Waldseemüller’s model. These early maps, however, restricted the name to the southern continent. Gerhard Mercator put the name America on both continents for the first time on his world map of 1538.
©1999-2001 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. University Libraries. All rights reserved. Please credit the James Ford Bell Library,
University of Minnesota if you copy or reproduce material from
this page.
URL: http://www.bell.lib.umn.edu/index.html