The Cartographer Who Mapped What He Could Not See

In 1507, Martin Waldseemuller produced the first map to label the newly discovered continent "America." Working from his small workshop in Saint-Die-des-Vosges, France, he painstakingly charted coastlines he had never visited, mountains he had never climbed, rivers he had never crossed. Yet even his most ambitious map captured only a fraction of what lay beyond the horizon. Waldseemuller knew the land was vaster than any cartographer could render.…