John Smith's map, "Virginia"

After his return to England, Smith worked with engraver William Hole to create a map of “Virginia” that was printed in Oxford in 1612 (see accompanying map). Based largely on notes and sketches made during his 1608 voyages, Smith’s map was so accurate that it served as the definitive rendering of the Chesapeake region for nearly a century.

Accompanying the map was a pamphlet guide describing the Chesapeake region in striking detail, including information about the area’s climate, flora, fauna and marine life. It also contained the first ethnographic study of the Native inhabitants of the Chesapeake, which remains an important source of information about the Algonquian peoples of the mid-Atlantic region.

Much as Lewis and Clark’s maps and written descriptions of the American West opened a new frontier for thousands of settlers in the 1800s, Smith’s 1612 map of the Chesapeake Bay greatly stimulated interest in the New World. As English immigrants flocked to Virginia in greater numbers in the 1600s, Smith’s widely published work served as a blueprint for settling the region. More broadly, Smith’s accounts of the Chesapeake Bay began a process of political, social and economic change that still reverberates today in the United States and the world.

John Smith's "Virginia" was originally published separately in London in 1612 and then in the 1612 Oxford publication of John Smith's A Map of Virginia: With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion. Subsequently it appeared in several other works by Smith and other commentators on Virginia. It remained the most influential map of Virginia until the last quarter of the 17th century and many of the place names used by Smith remain in use.

Click on the image for a highly detailed view. The map will resize to fit your browser window, but if you click on it again, it will expand to full size.