This elegant woodcut map appeared in the 1513 Strasbourg edition of the Ptolemy Geographia. It is the first map devoted to America to appear in any atlas.

It depicts the Atlantic coast from 335 degrees south to 55 degrees north. Twenty place names, mainly from Portuguese sources, appear along the North American coast. The Florida peninsula is shown before news of its discovery in 1513 by Ponce de Léon could have reached Europe. Similarly, the Gulf Coast is presented before its exploration was first documented and mapped by Pineda in 1519.

Only the northern portion of South America is shown. The continent is named Terra Incognita and bears an inscription stating that the land was discovered by Christopher Columbus sailing under a mandate from the King of Castile (Spain). This is significant because Waldseemüller was the maker of the 1507 12-sheet large map recently purchased by the U.S. Library of Congress. The 1507 map was the first to assign the name "America" to the southern continent in the New World to honor Amerigo Vespucci, who was erroneously thought to have landed on continental land a year before Columbus. The map maker must have become aware of his mistake sometime between 1507 and 1513 and erased the name and credited Columbus. None of Waldseemüller’s subsequent maps bear the name "America."

-- 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