Old Map of Orkney and Shetland by Joan Blaeu, 1654

Blaeu’s Seventeenth-Century Map of Orkney and Shetland

This striking early map of Orkney and the Shetland Islands was published in Amsterdam in 1654 as part of Joan Blaeu’s great Atlas of Scotland. Entitled Orcadum et Schetlandiae Insularum accuratissima descriptio, it presents Scotland’s two great northern archipelagos side by side, combining detailed geographical information with the elaborate decoration for which the Blaeu workshop became celebrated. The sheet has an unusually long history: evidence discovered in the correspondence surrounding the atlas shows that it was already being prepared for Willem Blaeu during the 1620s, decades before its eventual publication by his son Joan.

Map Details

Original title: Orcadum et Schetlandiae Insularum accuratissima descriptio

Underlying cartographic source: Probably a now-lost map by Timothy Pont

Early preparation: Willem Blaeu; map in preparation by 1626 and engraved by 1628

Publisher of the 1654 atlas: Joan Blaeu

Published: Amsterdam, 1654

Area shown: The Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands, presented as two separate maps on a single engraved sheet

Decorative features: Sailing vessels, marine creatures, ornamental cartouches and heraldic decoration

Source atlas: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive Atlas Novus, Pars Quinta — the Atlas of Scotland, 1654

Product type: Reproduction of a seventeenth-century copper-engraved map

The origins of this map are especially interesting because they reach back to the earliest attempts to create a detailed printed atlas of Scotland. Timothy Pont, who travelled extensively through Scotland during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, produced the first substantial body of regional mapping of the country. Many of his manuscript surveys survived and became the foundation of Blaeu’s Scottish atlas. The original Pont map for Orkney and Shetland has not survived, but National Library of Scotland research provides evidence that a lost Pont map was probably the source from which this engraving developed.

The sheet was apparently among the earliest Scottish maps to reach the Blaeu workshop. Correspondence demonstrates that it was being prepared by 1626 and had been engraved by 1628, during Willem Blaeu’s lifetime. Remarkably, however, it was not issued as part of the complete Scottish atlas until 1654, sixteen years after Willem’s death. His son Joan Blaeu ultimately brought the enormous project to publication in Amsterdam.

This history explains why attributing the map simply to either Willem or Joan Blaeu can be misleading. Willem was directly associated with its early preparation, while Joan was responsible for the atlas in which the map finally appeared. The 1654 Bibliothèque nationale de France example is catalogued under Joan Blaeu and records the map as an extract from the fifth part of his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.

The map itself divides the sheet vertically. Orkney occupies the left-hand section, while Shetland fills the right, allowing both archipelagos to be represented at a useful scale despite the considerable distance separating them. The numerous islands, sounds and deeply indented coastlines immediately demonstrate why accurate mapping of Scotland’s Northern Isles presented such a formidable challenge to early surveyors.

For seventeenth-century inhabitants, the surrounding sea was not simply an empty space between islands. It was the principal highway connecting communities, transporting goods and linking Orkney and Shetland with mainland Scotland, Scandinavia and the wider North Atlantic world. Blaeu’s numerous engraved sailing vessels are therefore particularly appropriate decoration for this maritime landscape.

The sheet also contains the marine creatures characteristic of decorative early maps. Such figures should not be understood as part of the geographical survey itself. They belonged to the visual vocabulary of Renaissance and seventeenth-century cartography, enlivening areas of open water while contributing to the sense of distance and maritime adventure associated with the northern seas.

Orkney and Shetland had distinctive historical identities long before Blaeu’s map appeared. Both archipelagos had deep Norse connections and remained under Norwegian and Danish rule until the fifteenth century. Orkney and Shetland were pledged to the Scottish Crown in 1468 and 1469 respectively as security connected with the marriage of James III of Scotland to Margaret of Denmark. Their Scandinavian inheritance continued to influence language, place-names, law and culture long afterwards.

Many of those layers of history are visible indirectly through the names recorded on an early map such as this. Spellings differ markedly from modern forms, reflecting a world in which geographical names were still being transferred from local speech and manuscript records into printed European cartography.

The publication of Blaeu’s Atlas of Scotland in 1654 was a landmark. For the first time, detailed maps covering much of Scotland were brought together within a major printed atlas. The project preserved information collected decades earlier and transformed it through the extraordinary engraving and printing standards of Amsterdam’s foremost cartographic workshop. The University of Edinburgh’s historical map collection records this Orkney and Shetland sheet as a 1654 work published under Joan Blaeu.

Today the map is valuable both as a decorative work and as a record of how the Northern Isles were understood more than three and a half centuries ago. Its unusual two-part composition, historic place-names, sailing vessels, marine decoration and complex Blaeu publishing history make it one of the most distinctive maps in the Scottish atlas.

For anyone with a connection to Orkney or Shetland, it provides a fascinating link with an island landscape whose relationship with the sea has shaped its history for centuries.

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