Rumold Mercator, son of Gerardus Mercator, the famous cartographer and promulgator of the Mercator Map Projection, was an accomplished cartographer in his own right. He worked very closely with his father in the production of the Mercator Atlas, completing and publishing the third volume of this atlas after his father's death in 1594. One of Gerardus Mercator's most famous maps, his wall map of the world drawn on the Mercator Projection and published in 1569, became Rumold's inspiration for this map. However, this map does have some significant differences from the 1569 map. One difference is that it is not drawn using the Mercator Projection. Instead, Rumold used a stereographic projection, separating the world into double hemispheres. This style allowed him an artistic forum for the background between the two hemispheres which he filled with strapwork, a scrollwork design that was a common cartographic device in the Dutch style of the late sixteenth-century.
     This map would influence other maps throughout the next century. It contains some new information, but it also propagates many existing myths of the time. It is one of the earliest maps to show the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, as well as the James and the York Rivers, and to correctly locate Japan. Some of the many misconceptions perpetuated by this map include, the location of the mythical kingdom of Anian taken from the accounts of Marco Polo, the placement of large islands in the Arctic region, and the large land mass in the southern hemisphere, called Terra Australis, which joined the tip of South America.