This is the third edition of Ortelius' map landmark map of the Americas showing the western hemisphere, and showing a prominent bulge in the South American coastline.

An important map because of it's influence on the European perceptions of America.

When the map was first published by Abraham Ortelius at Antwerp in 1570, it was the best map of the Americas available. It was in fact the first of it's kind to achieve-wide circulation through an atlas. North and South America stretch across this single hemisphere map.

North America resembles something like the continent we know today, except the area near Alaska is undefined and the northwest bulges alarmingly westward. South America is a short squat landmass.

The title is decorated with delightful strapwork decorations, very common to the maps in Ortelius’ atlas. In the Atlantic ocean, off what is now Argentina, a sea monster lurks. In the Pacific, a number of ships stream through the water, their sails filled with imaginary winds
.Lower California is correctly shown as a peninsula and America is separated from Asia in the north west. In this state the name of the Azores corrected to Las Acores

.This map has the first appearance of Chesapeake Bay on a map: The inclusion of a large inlet in the east seaboard of North America, labeled with the Indian name "Windansea", reflects the earliest unsuccessful attempts by the English to colonize the area.
It has the very first appearance of the Solomon Islands on a map - the islands were first discovered by Álvaro de Men dana de Naira in 1568, however, they did not appear on a printed map until Ortelius's third Americas map. New toponyms (place names) have been added in California, namely Ortelius adds the name "California". He also adds "C. Mendocino", which was discovered by Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo in 1542. while R. de los stretches is also added.

Ortelius's name and date (1587) appear in the lower right corner. The present map comes from Abraham Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (or "Theater of the World"), which is widely considered to be the first true modern atlas. The Theatrum was the best available summary of sixteenth-century cartographic knowledge, covering much of the exploration of the world in the century following the discovery of America.
The atlas was first published in 1570 in Antwerp, and it was published consistently until 1612.

Reference: Van Den Broecke 11, Burden 64; Schwartz & Ehrenberg 69. KAP