Old Map of Austria by Willem Blaeu, 1630

Willem Blaeu’s Map of the Archduchy of Austria

Willem Blaeu first published this map in Amsterdam in 1630. Its engraved title, Austria Archiducatus, auctore Wolfgango Lazio, identifies the territory as the Archduchy of Austria and credits the earlier Austrian cartographer Wolfgang Lazius as its geographical source.

The map appeared at the beginning of Blaeu’s great period of atlas production. His Atlas Appendix was published in 1630 and developed into the increasingly ambitious atlases associated with Willem and, later, his son Joan Blaeu.

Map Details

• Original title: Austria Archiducatus
• Title attribution: Auctore Wolfgango Lazio
• Meaning: The Archduchy of Austria, by Wolfgang Lazius
• Original cartographer: Wolfgang Lazius
• Engraver and publisher: Willem Janszoon Blaeu
• First published: Amsterdam, 1630
• Region shown: The historic Archduchy of Austria along the Danube
• Principal places: Vienna, Linz, Krems, Melk, Steyr and Pressburg
• Neighbouring territories: Bavaria, Bohemia, Moravia, Salzburg, Carinthia, Styria and Hungary
• Format: Hand-coloured copperplate engraving
• Relief: Mountains represented by pictorial ranges
• Decorative features: Title cartouche, Austrian arms and two mileage scales

Austria Before the Modern Republic

The territory enclosed by the coloured boundaries is very different from the outline of present-day Austria. Blaeu concentrates upon the historic archduchy extending along the Danube, rather than attempting to combine all the lands ruled by the Habsburg dynasty into one modern-looking country.

Tyrol and much of western modern Austria lie beyond the map. Salzburg appears at the lower-left margin as a separate ecclesiastical territory, while parts of Carinthia and Styria occupy the country to the south. Bohemia and Moravia are named prominently across the north.

These surrounding territories help explain Austria’s complicated political geography in 1630. The archduchy was a hereditary Habsburg possession within the Holy Roman Empire, bordered by other duchies, kingdoms and ecclesiastical states.

Following the Danube

The River Danube provides the map’s dominant geographical line. It enters from Bavaria in the west and winds eastwards through Upper and Lower Austria before reaching Pressburg, now Bratislava.

Linz occupies an important position on the upper river. Farther east, the Danube passes settlements including Melk and Krems before reaching Vienna, which is picked out as a substantial walled city beside the water.

Tributaries descend from the mountains and connect the Danube with the surrounding valleys. The Enns, Traun and other rivers divide the countryside into recognizable corridors of settlement and communication.

The prominence of the waterways reflects the practical geography of the period. Rivers provided routes through a heavily wooded and mountainous landscape, linked markets and towns, and shaped the location of monasteries, estates and fortified settlements.

Vienna and Pressburg

Vienna stands close to the eastern side of the archduchy rather than at its geographical centre. Blaeu depicts it with a compact red city symbol, surrounded by named communities, waterways and cultivated country.

The map predates the great expansion that carried Vienna far beyond its fortified core. It also appeared more than half a century before the Ottoman siege of 1683 transformed the military and political history of the city.

Pressburg lies near the far eastern edge. Known today as Bratislava, it belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary and had become the place of coronation for Hungarian monarchs following the Ottoman occupation of central Hungary.

Showing Vienna and Pressburg within the same Danube landscape makes their proximity particularly clear. The two cities were connected by the river but belonged to distinct historic territories.

Mountains, Forests and Settlement

Blaeu represents relief through long chains of individually engraved mountains. These ranges crowd the southern portion of the map and form the approaches towards Salzburg, Carinthia and Styria.

Forests appear as dense groups of miniature trees, particularly along borders and higher ground. The repeated symbols give the landscape a strongly textured appearance and distinguish wooded country from open river valleys.

Hundreds of place names fill the spaces between rivers and hills. Large towns are represented by clustered buildings, while villages, castles, monasteries and smaller communities receive simpler symbols.

This hierarchy does not provide a measured indication of population. It does, however, reveal which settlements and routes Blaeu considered important enough to distinguish within an exceptionally dense regional map.

The Cartography of Wolfgang Lazius

Wolfgang Lazius was a professor of medicine at the University of Vienna and official historian to Emperor Ferdinand I. He travelled through Habsburg territories researching their history, geography and antiquities and produced a substantial body of regional cartography.

Blaeu’s cartouche openly acknowledges that foundation. Rather than presenting the map as an entirely new Dutch survey, he credits Lazius as the author while identifying himself through the separate Amsterdam imprint at the lower left.

Lazius’s work was valued for its exceptional abundance of place names, even though it preceded the more systematic surveying methods of later centuries. Blaeu retained that richness while giving the geography the balanced engraving, decorative cartouches and carefully controlled lettering associated with his Amsterdam workshop.

The Austrian Arms

The ornamental panel near the lower edge contains the arms of the Archduchy of Austria: a white horizontal band across a red shield. It is surmounted by the archducal crown and surrounded by elaborate coloured decoration.

Below the arms are two distance scales. These distinguish German and Gallic miles, reminding the viewer that a “mile” was not yet a single standardized European measurement.

The arms, scales and title cartouche give visual weight to the lower and upper corners without obscuring the mapped country. Together with the pictorial mountains, forests and brightly coloured boundaries, they make Austria Archiducatus one of Blaeu’s most rewarding Central European maps.