In the second half of the 17th century, Armenian printing was experiencing rapid development in Europe. In 1695 in Amsterdam, the Armenian printing house headed by Tovmas Vanandetsi published a unique work, the first printed map of the world “Hamatarats Ashkharhatsuyts” (“Geographic Map of the World”).
The first large-scale map of the both hemispheres in Armenian was considered the best and one of the most reliable maps at the time. The world map was designed in the style of Western cartography.
All four publishers of the Armenian printing house in Amsterdam (Bishop Tovmas Vanandetsi, Mateos and Ghukas Hovhannisyan, and Mikayel Nuridjanian), who compiled and published the map “Hamatarats Ashkharhatsuyts”, came from the village of Vanand of the Gokhtan province of Nakhichevan.
Their company was known as “Vanandentsi Printing House” or simply Vanandetsi. Founded by them in Amsterdam, the Armenian printing house existed until 1717, having published many valuable textbooks in Armenian during its existence.
4 thoughts on “The First Printed Map of the World”
The first printed map of the world is from 1471 – a print of Isidore’s of Seville “Etymologies” with a typical medieval T and O map. The book was printed in Augsburg by Gunter Zainer.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map
The article has a designation of the characteristic features of the map, which made it unique and in a sense the first of its kind. The second paragraph of the article speaks of these unique features:
The first large-scale map of the both hemispheres in Armenian was considered the best and one of the most reliable maps at the time. The map was designed in the style of Western cartography.