Jodocus Hondius was born 1563 in Wakken (West Flanders). He became a globe maker and map engraver. In 1593, he established his business in Amsterdam after spending several years in London. He was one of the most important engravers of his time and engraved maps for van den Keere, Waghenaer and Speed. Hondius bought the plates of Mercator in 1604, added around 40 maps, and published the expanded Mercator-Atlas in 1606, still under Mercator's name. 

After he died in 1612 in Amsterdam, the business was carried out by his sons Jodocus II and Henricus.

Henricus Hondius, the second son of Jodocus Hondius Sr., was an engraver, cartographer, and publisher in his own right. After coming of age, Henricus Hondius initially worked with his older brother, Jodocus, and brother-in-law, Johannes Janssonius, to carry on his father’s business. The two brothers continued to publish the famed Mercator-Hondius Atlas under the Elder Hondius’ name until 1619, after which point it bore Henricus Hondius’s name solely. 

After Jodocus’s unexpected death in 1629, Henricus was angered by the sale of his brother’s printing plates to Henricus’s main competitor, Willem Blaeu. In response, he commissioned the engravers, Salomon Rogiers and Evert Hamsersvelt, to copy the sold plates. Upon the death of his mother in 1629, Henricus Hondius returned to the paternal home on the Kalverstraat and continued publishing with Johannes Janssonius. Inexplicably, Hondius left the atlas publishing business in the early 1640s. Henricus Hondius died in 1651, leaving the copper plates and the continued publication of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas to Johannes Janssonius.

• Maps published by Hondius