This beautifully detailed woodcut map appears in the Latin edition of the second letter of Cortés, the conqueror of the Aztecs in Mexico. It was published in Nuremberg in 1524, three years after the conquest.

The map is in two parts. The right portion is the earliest depiction of an American city, the current Mexico City, which at the time was named Temixtitan (Tenochtitlán), and was located in the center of Lake Texcoco with the temple of Teocalli and the Palace of the ruler of the Aztecs, Montezuma, at its center. The canals and causeways into the city are shown.

The left portion of the map depicts the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, oriented with North to the south. The name “La Florida” appears. Florida , the first European name to be placed on land which would later become the United States, was assigned by Ponce de Léon upon his landing in 1513 because that landing occurred on the Feast of Easter, “Pascua Florída.”

-- Dr. Seymour I. Schwartz, co-author of The Mapping of America and author of The French and Indian War, This Land is Your Land and The Mismapping of America