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Gerrit de Haan was the chief mapmaker (baaskaartenmaker) of the VOC (the Dutch East India Company) in Batavia, the VOC trading center in Asia, from 1748 to 1769.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, a mapmaking workshop (kaartenmakerswinkel) was opened in Batavia under the supervision of a chief mapmaker who was responsible for supplying charts to ships returning to the home country or sailing to various trading posts of the Company.

As the VOC's chief mapmaker, De Haan compiled a two-volume manuscript atlas Ligtende zeefakkel off de geheele Oost-Indische Waterweerelt (Blazing Beacon or the Whole of the East India Sea World), which included charts of the coasts and waters between the Cape of Good Hope and Japan, in the years 1760-1761. The first volume of this atlas was completed in 1760 and contains the part of the VOC charter area lying to the east of Sunda Strait. The second volume covers the areas of land and sea between the Cape of Good Hope and the west coast of Sumatra, plus the west coast of Australia and the coasts of Java. It was concluded in February 1761. The atlas is partly based on the surveys and charts by earlier map-makers, like Joan Blaeu (1596-1673) and Victor Victorsz.