Apart from atlases, maps were also produced as book illustrations, for example in for travel accounts. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these reports about journeys were frequently published in print. Travel accounts were often concerned with overseas voyages in the Americas, Africa and Asia. In this way, the European public was able to learn about countries far away: the armchair traveler was born! A strict division between atlas maps and book can’t be made, however. Sometimes the same copperplate printed maps can

be found in books as well as in atlases. Travel accounts were often translated from one European language into the other. The learned audience in the Netherlands was accustomed to reading in French, but for the broader readership accounts were translated into Dutch. The copperplates sometimes have text in two languages, so these could be used for both editions.