Staeten Landt - Abel Tasman's 1642 Map of New Zealand (Reproduction)

[icemaneli186]

Hi all.

I've got that mapping bug back again after realizing that I have won an Atlas Award (A huge thanks by the way!).
Just had to scratch the itch, so I did a quick reproduction of the first ever map of my home country, New Zealand.

For those who don't know, New Zealand wasn't discovered by the western world until the December 13th, 1642. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman on an expedition around the south coast of Australia and further east first sighted New Zealand somewhere just south of what is now Hokitika. He mistakenly took the landmass as the presumed great southern continent and named it Staeten Landt, which I assume means Southern Land? Regardless his map was, for over 130 years, the most accurate depiction of this 'southern land' until the expedition of Capt. James Cook in 1770.

I've included both the original (right) and reproduction (left) versions here, trying to keep mostly to the feel of the original.

Feel free to comment or critique.
Cheers

[Corilliant]

Very nice! A slight shame about the loss of the ship doodles, but I guess you can only remake a map to a certain extent before it just becomes a line-for-line copy. You've definitely managed to keep that, for want of a better word, "aged" feel to it.

It's quite fascinating to compare the coastlines of the original map with our maps of the South Island today. Some large features, like Golden Bay and Farewell Spit, are tiny in comparison to the Tasman Bay, and the entirety of Marlborough Sounds has been warped northwards drastically - but the shape of the coastlines was preserved!

Makes me wonder what caused that warp in direction. Thank goodness for satellite imagery, huh?

[Josiah VE]

Great antique style. I love that you reproduced a real old map.

[LordCartoart]

Very good map!

[Mouse]

Not too sure about the sheer number of rhumb lines in your version when there's no additional detail on the land, but otherwise very well drawn

[ChickPea]

Nice work on this, and great to see you mapping again.

[V1G1LANC3]

Nice map, i'm thinking about doing a colonial style map of Tasmania. Might look into some of Abel Tasman's work and use that as inspiration for the maps style.

[ThomasR]

You manage to get a look that looks even more authentic than the real one, that's quite the feat !

[icemaneli186]

Nice map, i'm thinking about doing a colonial style map of Tasmania. Might look into some of Abel Tasman's work and use that as inspiration for the maps style.

That sounds really cool! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.