Miniature
map of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, here titled as the India Orient.

This map presents a highly distorted depiction of the East
Indies, dividing the Far East into Persia, India (Indostan), and China. Japan
and Sri Lanka (Zeilan) are shown, while Korea is omitted—possibly represented
as the island south of Japan—and Taiwan may appear as the unnamed island
southeast of China. Mainland Southeast Asia is absorbed into India as a
similarly sized adjoining peninsula, and New Guinea is greatly exaggerated in
scale. A portion of North America appears in the upper-right corner. The
Pacific Ocean is labelled Mar Del Zur (Southern Sea), its common name
prior to the adoption of “Pacific.” Although insular Southeast Asia is also
distorted, Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and the Philippines are identified and
positioned with relative accuracy.

This map comes from a small-format (miniature) edition of
the famous atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum that was published in 1601.
Ortelius, who first issued the full-sized atlas in 1570, had already died by
1601, but his publishing partners continued producing updated and reduced
editions, starting in 1588. The Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (“Theatre of the
World”) was a ground-breaking 1570 atlas which was widely recognized as the
first modern atlas.