In 1564 Abraham Ortelius published his first map, Typus Orbis Terrarum. On May 20, 1570 several more maps were published. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World) created by Ortelius is viewed as the world’s first modern atlas. He is perceived as one of the founders of the School of Cartography and Geography in the Netherlands.
He was also the first to discover the continental drift between the coasts of America and Africa. The basis of his theory was proven correct centuries later. The overall design was not altered with the exception of the original coordinate lines, which would have resulted in a mismatch on the reprojection. Some small imperfections obtained from the source image still remain.
