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This map, engraved in 1788 by Franz Anton Schraembl in Vienna, represents the northwestern section of his four-sheet wall map of North America. The sheet extends from the Colorado River and the Rio Grande in the southwest to the southern Great Lakes and Georgia in the east, centering on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri River systems. It reflects a European effort to consolidate the latest geographic knowledge of the interior of North America during a transitional moment following U.S. independence.
Schraembl’s depiction is based on a synthesis of contemporary sources, including the work of D’Anville, Thomas Hutchins’s surveys of the Ohio Valley, and Spanish mapping of the Rio Grande and adjacent areas. The upper Missouri River is projected beyond its surveyed extent, following speculative reports. Throughout, Schraembl includes numerous Native American nations, such as the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Miami, alongside indications of American land companies operating in the Ohio Country, highlighting the complex and contested nature of territorial claims in the trans-Appalachian West.
The inset map in the upper left shows Hudson and Baffin Bays. Though this inset is somewhat schematic, its inclusion underscores the broader scope of the wall map project.
Territorial boundaries are lightly colored, distinguishing Spanish Louisiana from the newly independent United States and the Northwest Territory. The engraving is dense with information, especially along the major river corridors, and reflects a mix of accurate hydrographic data and conventional representations inherited from earlier European models. Settlement names, portages, river junctions, and a few forts are noted, with particular emphasis on areas of strategic or economic interest.
Schraembl was born and worked in Vienna, where he was a mapmaker in the latter half of the eighteenth century. He began his business in 1787, partnering with Franz Johann Joseph von Reilly. He is best known for his large format atlas, the Allgemeiner Grosser Atlas. The atlas was finished in 1800, after twenty years of compilation and composition--it was the first Austrian world atlas. While a notable work, the atlas did not sell well, plunging Schraembl into financial difficulty. In response, Schraembl expanded his offerings to include literature and art. Upon his death, Schraembl's firm was taken over by his widow, Johanna, and her brother, Karl Robert Schindelmayer. From 1825, it was run by Franz Anton's son, Eduard.
