Second state of Abraham Ortelius's map of the whole of Asia, distinguished by the removal of "Cum priuilegio" in the lower left corner; "La farfana" replaces "La Farfana" in the upper right-hand corner in the sea near Japan; the town "Ara" above "Aden" has vanished.

The map is a reduction of Ortelius's own separately-published map of Asia (1567). In the 1567 map Ortelius explained that his map was based on the work of Giacomo Gastaldi, whose own work was in turn supposedly based on the Muslim scholar "Taqwim Albudan", which was in reality the title of an archaic Arab geographic dictionary. He also benefited from information from the voyage of the Spanish explorer Miguel López de Legazpi, who reached the Philippines from Mexico in 1565. The island to the north of New Guinea, "La Barbuda", was discovered by the expedition, who named the island in honour of the bearded men they found there. New Guinea in general has been improved, with a few islands off the coast called "Cainan", which is West Papua.

This map and the map of southeast Asia in the 'Theatrum' were the first to definitely map Taiwan, labelled "I Fermosa". Ortelius has improved upon the position of the Moluccas, possibly thanks to a letter he received on the subject from the French cartographer Guillaume Postel in 1567, who complained that Portuguese mapmakers had disseminated false coordinates for the islands. Japan, however, is drawn after Portuguese sources.

Interestingly, what is shown of New Guinea appears as an island, quite distinct from the glimpse of "Terrae Australis" in the lower right-hand corner.

The mapmaker
"All the elements of the modern atlas were brought to publication in Abraham Ortelius' "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum". This substantial undertaking assembled... the best available maps of the world by the most renowned and up-to-date geographers... each of Ortelius' maps was engraved specifically for his atlas according to uniform formats" (Shirley).

Ortelius first published his 'Theatrum…', arguably the first atlas in the modern sense of the word, in 1570, with 70 seventy copper engravings on fifty-three double-folio pages. A businessman native to Antwerp, Ortelius compiled the best existing maps, re-engraved them on a standardized format, and included them with the text in one volume. But, by 1570, he had been dealing in maps and charts for more than twenty years. The death of Ortelius's father in 1535, who had been a wealthy merchant, seems to have placed his family in financial difficulties. When Ortelius was as young as 19 he is recorded as having joined the Guild of St. Luke as "afsetter" "or colourist of maps and prints. He seems to have reached a very advanced level of skill in this craft, as some customers continued to insist on buying atlases coloured by him personally at a time when he had already developed into a publisher and cartographer/merchant… Ortelius [also] became a trader in books, prints and maps. Much of this trading had to do with the house of Plantin [subsequently publisher of the 'Theatrum']…Soon he was attending the book fair in Frankfurt to buy and sell books, maps and prints for others as well as for himself. He first met Gerard Mercator there in 1554, which marked the state of a life-long professional relationship and personal friendship… " (van den Broecke).

Through his work Ortelius became quite the cosmopolitan, he travelled extensively to France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Italy, England and Ireland, and as a result had command of several languages. With the publication of the 'Theatrum' came tremendous success and wealth. Giving full credit to the original cartographers, the 'Theatrum' was so successful that it was printed three times in 1570 alone. In 1574 Ortelius retained the position of Royal Cosmographer to Phillip II and was given a fine gold necklace, worth 1000 ducats. Between 1570 and 1612 the atlas was published in 42 editions and the 7 languages: Latin, German, Flemish, French, Spanish, English and Italian.