Joan Blaeu's Remarkable World Atlas

Joan Blaeu produced a remarkable 11 volume atlas between 1662 and 1665. It was the largest book published during the 17th Century. 

These volumes were meant to be the first part of a larger series. The title translates to "Grand Atlas or Blaeu's Cosmography, in which are most accurately described earth, sea, and heaven" with a second part about the oceans and a third about the stars. However, he did not live long enough to publish those volumes.

This summer I went to the Osher Map Library in Portland, Maine to see their Pictorial Maps exhibit (see my previous blog post for a review.)  The first map in the exhibit though not "American" or part of the "Golden Age" was from this atlas and meant to show an early use of pictorial decorations on maps.

While I was there, they let me look at a volume of this atlas. I chose the first volume and took pictures of various pages, including the map above (though the image from Osher shown above is much better than my photo.) It was an amazing experience to hold a volume of this atlas in my hands. Unfortunately between the lousy notes I took and my lack of knowledge of Latin, I don't have much to add to the photos I took - here they are.

From the Introduction - the orbit of the known planets, going out as far as Saturn.

The first volume is mostly focused on the Arctic regions. Above is the island of Spitsbergen, below is the adjacent island of Jan Mayen with some great (and probably very exaggerated) details.

More easily recognizable to most people, Iceland.

In addition to maps, the atlas has some great pictorial details including this Walrus illustration,

and whatever this totem is. If I could read Latin, I might be able to figure it out. Note: see comments for a good explanation.

There are also details of buildings and other public and religious spaces. Again, I don't know what we're looking at here.

UPDATE: Reader Ted Kottler has identified this as Tycho Brahe's observatory on the island of Hven (aka Ven), Sweden in the Oresund, the strait between Sweden and Denmark. 

I'll finish up with one more map. After much curiosity and digging around, I figured out that the map below is part of the Nordfriesland district in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany along the border with Denmark. I'm still not sure what the underwater streams are - some elaborate planned land reclamation, ocean drainage project?

Once again, I would like to thank the kind and helpful staff at the Osher Map Library for allowing me to see and hold this atlas. Though the pictorial map exhibit is over, there are still lots of great things to see there.

Tastes of Sweden

A couple of months ago I featured the Flavors of Finland, a map/recipe mashup from Expedia. Now here's the Tastes of Sweden.

Taste of Sweden by ExpediaSE


The traditional provinces are all represented. From their outreach message:

 Due to Sweden's large North–South expanse, the variations between the local recipes and dishes are quite huge, and this piece enables you to explore these on a local level. What is even more special about the piece is the fact that it draws attention to both infamous and lesser known dishes and their rich histories so that in many ways it doubles up as both a test of our local culinary knowledge, and also a really cool education piece because we can click around the map in order to learn about each and every dish – including the likes of the Southern spit cake, salmon spring rolls from Västergötland, hare burgers from Medelpad, and even a lovely reindeer stew from Lappland.

Here is a lovely screen shot in case of page load problems

Beeswax Maps

Ren Ri is a Chinese artist and beekeeper. He uses beeswax as an artistic medium, creating sculptures and maps.

Above is "Indo-Malay Islands" from his "Geometric Series." Maps and other artworks were recently displayed in the PearlLam Galleries in Hong Kong. These images were taken from the exhibit's catalogue.
 "Korean Peninsula"

 "Mongolia"

 "Argentina" and "Scandinavian Peninsula"

"South Pole"

 

 "World"

Map of the Week 119-Swedish Meatballs on String

The thing below is a map of sorts. Not the prettiest thing you'll ever see and only "waguely" understandable. Still it would be cool to see it as a 3D model so you could look from all angles and see all the different connections. I forget where I originally found it but it's posted on Flickr. If you click it it will tell you in the title that it shows "Road Traffic" between Swedish counties, however a reading of the text below indicates that it is actually showing the tonnage of goods transported. You will also get some more info and the author (Arenamontanus).
Not knowing my Swedish counties as well as a geographer should I downloaded the county map below right from World Atlas. Note that there is at least one mistake on the county map - Dalarna County is labeled Kopparberg which is actually a town located in adjacent Orebro County.




Realizing that this blog layout doesn't lend itself to looking at these maps side by side I took the liberty of making my own image to compare the two maps - Click below to get a larger image - if that helps any.