For several hundred years, the term "Tartary" - or its Latin version, Tartaria - appeared on European maps, usually floating somewhere between Eastern Europe and China. This post explores the etymology of the place name and the various regions to which it referred.
The story of the naming of America has been told before – not surprisingly considering the object central to the story, Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, is one of the most important treasures in the Geography and Map Division. The name was bestowed by the mapmaker to show his support for Amerigo Vespucci’s argument that …
