Gallery: 18 Maps From When the World Thought California Was an Island
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY01Goos1666
This 1666 map by Dutch cartographer Peter Goos is one of McLaughlin's favorites. "It's a beautiful map," he said.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY02Giacomo1500
Before it was depicted as an island, California was depicted as a peninsula, as in this 1548 map from Italy.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY03briggs1625
This 1625 map by English mapmaker Henry Briggs refers to "the large and goodly island of California" and was influential in spreading that geographical misconception.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY04Speed1626
The flat northern coast of California and many place names in this 1626 map appear to be borrowed from Briggs' 1625 map.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY05Keere1646
An English map from 1646.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY06Sanson1656
The northern coast of California has more indentations in this map from around 1657.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY07Cellarius1660-2
Even celestial maps, like this one from 1660, showed California as an island.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY08Cellarius1660
A detail from another celestial map from 1660 shows California as an island in the globe to the right.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY09Verbiest1674
It wasn't just Europeans who thought California was an island, as this map originally published in Peking in 1674 shows.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY10Coronelli1691
Venetian cartographer Vincenzo Coronelli made beautiful, if inaccurate maps. In addition to depicting California as an island in this 1691 map, he shows the Mississippi River entering the Gulf of Mexico near modern day Houston and a large (nonexistent) lake in what's now northern Georgia.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY11Jaillot1692
Detail from a French map published in the late 1600s.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY12Buffier1730
A 1730 French map still shows California as an island.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY13Moll1741
A page from an English atlas published in 1741.
GLEN MCLAUGHLIN MAP COLLECTION / STANFORD UNIVERSITY14kino1762
Jesuit priest Eusebius Kino drew a more accurate geography in this 1762 map. But the myth of California lived on for another century or more.
