Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Ortelius, Netherlands, 1570–1612).Piri Reis map (Ottoman Empire, 1570–1612).Dell'Arcano del Mare (England/Italy, 1645–1661).Cartes générales de toutes les parties du monde (France, 1658–1676).Atlas Maior (Blaeu, Netherlands, 1662–1667).Atlas Novus (Blaeu, Netherlands, 1635–1658).Atlas Sive Cosmographicae (Mercator, Duisburg, in present-day Germany, 1595).Some cartographically or commercially important atlases include the following: Ītlases of anatomy exist, mapping out organs of the human body or other organisms. There are atlases of the other planets (and their satellites) in the Solar System. Ī desk atlas is made similar to a reference book. A travel atlas may also be referred to as a road map. It has maps at a large zoom so the maps can be reviewed easily. Types of atlases Ī travel atlas is made for easy use during travel, and often has spiral bindings so it may be folded flat (for example Geographers' A-Z Map Company famous A–Z atlases). Therefore it is possible that early printed atlases with the same title page can be different in contents. The client could change the contents to their liking, have the maps coloured/gilded or not and after publisher and customer agreed the atlas was bound. Unlike now most atlases were not bound and ready for the customer to buy, but their possible components were shelved separately. There is, however, quite a difference in the way atlases were published in the 16th-19th centuries and nowadays. Rather, this title is awarded to the collection of maps Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by the Brabantian cartographer Abraham Ortelius printed in 1570. The first work that contained systematically arranged maps of uniform size representing the first modern atlas was prepared by Italian cartographer Pietro Coppo in early 16th century, however it wasn't published at the time so is conventionally not considered the first atlas. The neologism coined by Mercator was a mark of his respect for the Titan, Atlas, the "King of Mauretania", whom he considered to be the first great geographer. The volume that was published posthumously one year after his death is a wide-ranging text but, as the editions evolved, it became simply a collection of maps and it is in that sense that the word was used from the middle of the seventeenth century. This title provides Mercator's definition of the word as a description of the creation and form of the whole universe, not simply as a collection of maps. The use of the word "atlas" in a geographical context dates from 1595 when the German-Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator published Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura ( Atlas or cosmographical meditations upon the creation of the universe, and the universe as created). The concept of atlas in its modern sense and the genre of atlas in its own right were the brainchild and among the pioneering contributions of early modern Netherlandish cartographers, geographers and cosmographers most notably Gerardus Mercator (who first used the term 'atlas' for a collection of maps) and Abraham Ortelius (who is often recognized as the creator of the first true atlas in the modern sense). See also: Early modern Netherlandish cartography and geography