File:Tabula Terre Nove (The Admiral's Map).jpg

English: Tabula Terre Nove (The Admiral's Map). Restored example of Waldseemüller's groundbreaking map of 1513, the earliest obtainable map to focus on America.

Martin Waldseemüller's Tabula Terre Nove is the first obtainable printed map to focus on the New World. Commonly known as the "Admiral's Map", it is preceded only by the small map of the Spanish Main by Peter Martyr in Seville, 1511 (12 surviving examples known) and Johannes Stobnicza's map of 1512 (3 surviving known examples). The present work was the most important map included in Johann Schott's edition of Ptolemy's Geographia, published in Strasbourg in 1513. Given its radical role in asserting the existence of the New World, it was perhaps ironic that it appeared in an edition of Ptolemy, for it helped to shatter the traditional Ptolemaic conventions of geography.

Waldseemuller's map shows a continuous coastline between North and South America, with the massive east-west coastline of South America being the map's single largest feature, extending south to approximately the Rio de la Plata. The enigmatic interior of the continent is aptly labeled "Terra Incognita". In the Caribbean, the islands of Cuba (named Isabella, after Queen Isabella of Spain), Hispaniola (Spagnolla), and Puerto Rico (Boriguem), Jamaica (Jamaiqua) are shown, along with numerous smaller islands of the Caribbean and Bahamian archipelagos.

North America is charted to a point within modern Atlantic Canada, including a river named Caninor, quite possibly the St. Lawrence River. This region had almost certainly been explored by Iberian fishermen, as well as various expeditions emanating from Bristol. In all, about 20 place names are shown on the North American coastline, drawn primarily from Portuguese sources, including the Cantino Portolano World Map of 1502 and the Caveri World Map of circa 1505.

The representations of Florida pre-dates the first recorded European contact (Ponce de Leon), which occurred the same year that this map was printed. It also predates the first mapping of the Gulf of Mexico done during Alonso Álvarez de Pineda's voyage of 1517-9. The striking appearance of the Floridian peninsula and the telltale curve of the northern Gulf Coast suggest that Waldseemuller had access to the reports of unrecorded voyages which had been completed and were prior to 1513.

The inscription printed in South America notes that the land and adjacent islands were discovered by Columbus under Spanish authority, as it reads, "Hec terra cum adiacentib insulis inuenta est per Columbus ianuensem ex mandato Regis Castelle" ("This land with its adjacent islands was discovered by Columbus, sent by the king of Castile"). Waldseemuller had previously credited Amerigo Vespucci with the discovery of America.

In the text to his 1513 edition of Ptolemy, Waldseemüller refers to the "Admiral" as the source of the map. The identity of the Admiral has long been a source of scholarly debate. Traditionally it was assumed that it was a reference to Columbus, who held the title "Admiral of the Ocean Sea", while others have countered that it is a reference to Amerigo Vespucci, the Piloto Mayor of Spain, whose name is closely linked to Waldseemüller's work. More recently, it has been revealed that it likely derives from an inscription in the Caveri's manuscript map of 1505, which resides at Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.

The map is a cartographic landmark of the utmost importance in the mapping of America. With the exception of the reduced size edition of this map published by Laurent Fries (Lyon, 1522 /1541), it would be more than twenty years before the next large-scale regional map of the eastern coastline of the Americas was published, that being Ramusio's map of 1534.

The map has been cleaned, with the ink lettering retouched. The color is likely 20th Century and has also been sympathetically retouched, with thin spots in the paper, reinforced. Minor facsimile along centerfold, with reinstatement of "Tabula Ter".