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This vibrant mid-century promotional map was issued by the state-owned Polish Ocean Lines (Polskie Linie Oceaniczne, or PLO) to showcase the reach of its post-war liner service from the Baltic port of Gdynia. A simplified tan landmass floats on a pale aqua sea, framed by a red-and-black checkerboard border; the bold legend POLSKIE LINIE OCEANICZNE GDYNIA anchors the bottom edge.
A yellow panel in the North Indian Ocean states the goal: “A map showing the principal ports served regularly by the Polish Ocean Lines, and their distances from Gdańsk & Gdynia (for Szczecin deduct 110 miles).” Red lines trace scheduled cargo-and-passenger routes southwest to the River Plate (Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Santos, Rio de Janeiro), southeast through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal to East Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and onward to Southeast Asia and Australia. A separate arc crosses the North Atlantic to an unnamed North-American port. Black rectangles label every stop and list mileage back to the home ports—practical data for shippers and travelers alike.
Instead of conventional geography, the artist scatters lively vignettes: a cowboy rides across North America; a gaucho, coffee branch, and sugar cane evoke Brazil; pyramids, an ostrich, and a spear-bearing hunter mark Africa; elephants, a water buffalo, and rice paddies dot Asia; a kangaroo stands on stylized Australia. The oceans are filled with breaching whales, sleek liners, and ghostly old sailing ships, while a bold equatorial compass rose centers the sheet.
PLO was founded in 1951, inheriting the fleets and routes of pre-war Polish firms like the Gdynia–America Line, and quickly rebuilt a worldwide network that by the mid-1950s offered regular service to five continents. Gdynia itself had risen from fishing village to major deep-water port between 1920 and 1939, giving the newly independent Polish state a direct outlet to global trade. This map therefore doubles as national messaging: it announces that post-war Poland, despite heavy devastation and new political alignments, had re-established its maritime links and could once again “connect continents” under its own flag.
Although unsigned, the polished layout, clean typography, and playful pictographs match the work of Polish commercial artists active in the 1950s and early 1960s. Printed in color lithography on coated paper and designed to fold into brochures or hang in travel agencies, the map is now a prized example of Cold-War-era maritime advertising art—valued both for its cheerful mid-century style and for what it reveals about Poland’s renewed engagement with global commerce after 1945.
