Linschoten’s map

One of the earliest Dutch maps on which the coasts of Vietnam are mapped is this chart of East- and Southeast-Asia. The map is designed by Arnold Floris van Langren and engraved by his younger brother Hendrik Floris van Langren. The map was included in Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s Itinerario, his account on his travels to Asia in Portuguese service. The map has East at the top. The names of the Vietnamese regions (Cauchinchina and Champa) are not indicated in the map, but are mentioned in the map’s title. Several rivers as Mecon (Mê Kông) and islands as Pulo Cecir (Phú Quý) and Pulo Condor (Côn Đảo) are named along the Vietnamese coasts, as well as a few cities: Coaynam (Hội An), Auarella (Đại Lãnh), Champaa (Nha Trang) and Calamea (Cam Ranh). The region around the South China Sea, now called East Sea by Vietnam, with the Paracel Islands, is quite accurate, the regions further north and south (Korea, Japan, Java) are less accurately drawn.

Arnold en Hendrik van Langren, Exacta & accurate delineatio cum orarum maritimarum tum etiam locorum terrestrium quae in regiononibus China, Cauchinchina, Camboia sive champa, Syao, Malacca, Aracamn & Pegu …, 1595 (COLLBN Port 56 N 2).