The first commercially available “modern” map of the continent of Europe. Emulating its source map by Waldseemuller, famously south is at the top of the map.

When this map was first issued in 1540, it was one of the first “modern” maps of the European continent; in other words, it was not derived from the geography of the 2nd century map maker, Claudius Ptolemy. It was actually sourced from a map first issued by the great German map maker, Martin Waldseemuller in 1511. He in turn was inspired by two maps by Erhard Etzlaub from 1500 and 1501. Waldseemuller’s map is now known in only one example of a later printing from 1520, leaving Munster’s map as the earliest commercially available map of “modern” Europe.

There has been a great deal of speculation about the orientation of this map with South shown at the top. This follows Etzlaub and Waldseemuller’s models who both produced maps with this orientation for use with a solar compass. Later, many regional maps of Germany in the first half of the 16th century were often oriented with south at the top. The convention of having north at the top was Ptolemaic and Munster wanted to follow Etzlaub and Waldseemuller as contemporary map makers. 

This example of the map is from the 1572 edition of the “Cosmographia”.