Early example of a local nautical map from Hispanic America

In the last third of the 16th century, the Spanish crown launched a project to obtain a complete map of the New World. The project used surveys known as Relaciones Geográficas. A questionnaire with more than 50 questions was sent to each settlement. These also had to be completed with a map of the local region. These maps, known as pinturas (paintings), lacked ground measurements and therefore scale, as well as geographical coordinates. Only a few were completed in accordance with the norms of European mapmaking. Among these, some of the most important are the maps created by the Sevillian Francisco Gali, navigator, explorer, cosmographer and cartographer.

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