Deliniantur in hac Tabula, Orae Maritimae Abexiae, Freti Mecani; al Maris Rubri; Arabiae, Ormi, Persiae, Supra Sindam usq, Fluminis Indi, Cambriae India & Malabaris, Insulae, Ceylon

Jan Huygen van Linschoten was a Dutch traveller, merchant, and writer whose years in Portuguese Goa gave him access to closely held information about Iberian navigation and overseas trade. In 1583 he travelled to Goa, where he served as secretary to João Vicente da Fonseca, the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa. This position placed him near the centre of Portuguese administration and commerce in the Indian Ocean.

After returning to the Dutch Republic in 1592, Linschoten prepared his observations for publication with the Amsterdam publisher Cornelis Claesz. His Itinerario, Voyage ofte Schipvaert naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien was published in Amsterdam in 1596. Although best known for opening up Portuguese knowledge of the East Indies, the work also covered the wider Iberian maritime world, including Africa, Brazil, Spanish America, and the sea routes linking Europe, the Atlantic, and Asia. An English translation, Discours of Voyages into ye Easte & West Indies, followed in London in 1598 (356). This map follows the sea route from the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa through Arabia, Ormus, Persia, Sind, Cambay, Malabar, Ceylon, the Bay of Bengal, and parts of Southeast Asia. It is concerned less with inland geography than with the ports, islands, capes, and sea passages that mattered to ships moving between Arabia, India, Ceylon, and the East Indies.

Based on Portuguese maritime information available to Linschoten in Goa, the map helped Dutch readers understand the structure of Indian Ocean navigation at a time when they were seeking direct access to Asian trade. Its long coastal sweep also shows why the Itinerario was so valuable: it did not simply describe distant places, but organised them as a connected route system. This map belongs to the wider cartographic and illustrative programme of Linschoten’s Itinerario, which included a world map by Petrus Plancius (71), first published in 1594, and five regional maps associated with Arnold Florent van Langren and Henricus Florent van Langren: these include East and Southeast Asia (74), South and West Africa (277), East Africa and the western Indian Ocean (278), and South and Central America (279) and this present map of Asia and the Indian Ocean.