The Epic Story of the Map that gave America its Name

BBC ^ | 7/3/18 | Madhvi Ramani

[Kartographer]

A few hundred years ago, when much of the world was mysterious and unknown, two European humanists came together to produce an extraordinary map of the world.

[Kartographer]

The Waldseemüller map depicted the New World for the first time (Credit: The Picture Art Collection/Alamy)

[beergarden]

I think I see a wall separating the savages from an area from what looks like califrnia to texas..

[BenLurkin]

gnip

[SkyDancer]

Meanwhile the natives called it?

[centurion316]

Most of the western coastlines are conjecture. The map shows part of the South American east coast, the Central America east coast, Gulf coast, Florida, Cuba and other parts of the Caribbean, and part of our East Coast. They could map the coast lines that they could see and could plot their latitude. Longitude was a guess, and coasts that they had not visited were fictional.

[Texas Eagle]

A few hundred years ago??? Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, BBC? I thought manking has been around for hundreds of MILLIONS of years. Why would it only be within the last few hnndred years that he began exploring the earf?

Sounds to me like there's a case to be made for man only being around for, oh, I don't know, ten to twelve thousand years. Like it says in The Bible.

[Red Badger]

Home.......................

[raybbr]

The natives didn’t have a name for their world other than “the land”.

[equaviator]

The Americas were named for Italian explorer and navigator Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512).

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Nailed it! ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

[catnipman]

“Meanwhile the natives called it?”

home ...

[SkyDancer]

In talking with some natives they just referred to the area as The World or in Navajo: Diné bikéyah or Dinétah. The word for North America that is used today is Náhook&491;sjí Kéyah dah siʼánígíí.

One source:https://www.quora.com/What-did-the-native-people-call-the-American-continents

[ExGeeEye]

Gesundheit.

[Hardastarboard]

I got a laugh out of a cute girl once by mispronouncing Amerigo’s last name. :-)

[Oatka]

Meanwhile the natives called it?

I understand that when a bunch of Dutchmen asked an Indian what the New York island was called, he said, "Manhattan", which was their word for "I don't know."

[Rockingham]

An alternative theory has it that the name America was derived from Welsh merchant, customs official, and sheriff of Bristol Richard ap Meryk, which is anglicised as Richard Amerike (or Ameryk). Supposedly, this Richard Amerike was the primary funder of the exploration launched from Bristol by Venetian John Cabot in 1497 and was the owner of Cabot’s ship, the Matthew. The land that Cabot discovered was thus named America in tribute to Amerike’s sponsorship of Cabot’s expedition. Although this claim is plausible, the traditional and consensus view is that the name of mapmaker Amerigo Vespucci provided the name America.

[SkyDancer]

With all this neutral gendering nonsense they'll have to get rid of the Man in Man-hattan - will have to call it "Peoplehattan" or something.

Right now I'm in Filthy-delphia ready to fly to Chi-congo.

[Glad2bnuts]

How did they know that water surrounded the new continents? Deduction, people had been to China and looked upon the Pacific Ocean to the East I assume.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 07/12/2018, posted by Kartographer. A very belated thanks to BenLurkin for the ping.

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