Decorative map of America, showing California as an Island, prepared to illustrate Vander Aa's Dutch translation of the report of Columbus' first voyage to America.
Includes an incomplete Great Lakes, unknown Northwest Coast of America, highly inaccurate mapping of the Mississippi River, the 7 Cities of Cibola and a largely incomplete knowledge of the region which would become New Zealand and Australia. California is shown based upon the so called Sanson Model.
South America misprojected in a very wide fashion.
Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733) was a Dutch mapmaker and publisher who printed pirated editions of foreign bestsellers and illustrated books, but is best known for his voluminous output of maps and atlases. Van der Aa was born to a German stonecutter from Holstein. Interestingly, all three van der Aa sons came to be involved in the printing business. Hildebrand was a copper engraver and Boudewyn was a printer.