page_title: History of cartography
section_title: Rise of Dutch corporate cartography
hierarchical_section_title: History of cartography / Early modern cartography / Netherlandish (Dutch and Flemish) school of cartography / Rise of Dutch corporate cartography
caption_attribution_description: English: Melchisedech Thevenot (1620?-1692): Hollandia Nova detecta 1644; Terre Australe decouuerte l'an 1644, Paris: De l'imprimerie de Iaqves Langlois, 1663 Based on a map by the dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu. Langlois, 1663. Українська: «Hollandia Nova detecta 1644; Terre Australe decouuerte l'an 1644», карта Мельхіседека Тевено (1620?-1692), видана у Парижі 1644 року. Праця базується на карті голландського картографа Яна Блау.
context_page_description: The history of cartography traces the development of cartography, or mapmaking technology, in human history. Maps have been one of the most important human inventions for millennia, allowing humans to explain and navigate their way through the world. The earliest archaeological maps include cave paintings, to ancient maps of Babylon, Greece, China, and India. In their most simple form maps are two dimensional constructs, however since the age of Classical Greece maps have also been projected onto a three-dimensional sphere known as a globe. In the 21st century, with the onset of the Information Age and the subsequent increase in computing power, maps can now be digitized in numerical form, transmitted and updated via satellite GPS.
  Maps, or depictions that can be identified as geographical representations, have been found across ancient and Bronze Age cultures, with many of these early maps being simple structures that were likely more intended to be used as religious or symbolic tools rather than practical ones.
context_section_description: The Dutch dominated the commercial cartography (corporate cartography) during the seventeenth century through the publicly traded companies (such as the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company) and the competing privately held map-making houses/firms. In the book Capitalism and Cartography in the Dutch Golden Age (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Elizabeth A. Sutton explores the fascinating but previously neglected history of corporate (commercial) cartography during the Dutch Golden Age, from ca. 1600 to 1650. Maps were used as propaganda tools for both the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in order to encourage the commodification of land and an overall capitalist agenda.
  In the long run the competition between map-making firms Blaeu and Janssonius resulted in the publication of an 'Atlas Maior' or 'Major Atlas'. In 1662 the Latin edition of Joan Blaeu's Atlas Maior appeared in eleven volumes and with approximately 600 maps. In the years to come French and Dutch editions followed in twelve and nine volumes respectively. Purely judging from the number of maps in the Atlas Maior, Blaeu had outdone his rival Johannes Janssonius. And also from a commercial point of view it was a huge success. Also due to the superior typography the Atlas Maior by Blaeu soon became a status symbol for rich citizens. Costing 350 guilders for a non-coloured and 450 guilders for a coloured version, the atlas was the most precious book of the 17th century. However, the Atlas Maior was also a turning point: after that time the role of Dutch cartography (and Netherlandish cartography in general) was finished. Janssonius died in 1664 while a great fire in 1672 destroyed one of Blaeu's print shops. In that fire a part of the copperplates went up in flames. Fairly soon afterwards Joan Blaeu died, in 1673. The almost 2,000 copperplates of Janssonius and Blaeu found their way to other publishers.
caption: A typical map from the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography. Australasia during the Golden Age of Dutch exploration and discovery (c. 1590s–1720s) including: Nova Guinea (New Guinea), Nova Hollandia (mainland Australia), Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), and Nova Zeelandia (New Zealand).
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