Pieter Goos (1616–1675) was a Dutch cartographer, copperplate engraver, publisher and bookseller. He was the son of Abraham Goos (1590–1643), also a cartographer and map seller. From 1666, Pieter Goos published a number of well produced

atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geogra ...

es. He was the first to map Christmas Island, which he labelled "Mony" in his map of the East Indies, published in his 1666 ''Zee-Atlas'' (Sea Atlas). His ''Atlas ofte Water-Weereld'' (Atlas or Water World) has been cited as one of the best maritime atlases of its time. Another of his fine works was the ''Oost Indien'' (East Indies) map published in 1680.

Early life

Goos was born in 1616 into a cartographer's family in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. His father, Abraham, was an established cartographer having published globes as well as land and sea maps at

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

. His mother was Stijntgen Theunisdr de Ram. In Antwerp, his father had associated with Jodocus Hondius and Johannes Janssonius. Goos followed in his footsteps, first creating pilot books and then moving into global sea atlases to assist navigation. His son, Henrik, followed in the family tradition of cartography and publishing. Goos operated from Amsterdam, which was the focal point of cartography (as Antwerp was affected by war) and also trade during the seventeenth century. The Dutch maps were very detailed, colourful and attractive.

Career

Pilot books, which contained a large number of navigation charts, were published by many authors, including Goos. He had a notarized agreement with two others, Jacob Lootsman and Hendrick Doncker, to publish pilot books for navigation along the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

coast, also covering easterly and westerly navigational routes. These were called the Dutch pilot books and remained valid for the period from 1643 to 1680. Goos was also instrumental in publishing the first pilot book for coastlines outside

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. A further improvement over the pilot books in Dutch cartography was the publication of sea atlases covering the whole world. Initiated in 1659 by Doncker, the approach was also adopted by Goos from 1666. One of his larger works is named ''le grand & nouveau miroir ou flambeau de la mer'' (1662). In the same year, Goos published "The Lighting Colomne or Sea-Mirrour", which not only contained nautical charts, but also "a brief instruction of the art of navigation". The maps of Goos and Gerard van Keulen were used exclusively during the eighteenth century until 1740. They were, however, found to have deficiencies such as the location of

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. ...

s, grand banks and islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with inaccuracies of as much as 44 leagues on the reduced Goos maps. Goos' famous world map titled ''Atlas ofte Water-Weereld'' was in two parts, one for each hemisphere. The colourful presentation included the two poles. His maritime maps encompassed not only Europe,

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...

and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

but also the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

and the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. The ''Zee Atlas'' covered the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" ( Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), ( Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Ka ...

, the

and the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

as well as the

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

and

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

s. He also published regional maps covering the coastal areas of all the continents, facilitating navigation by including details of sandbars, sea depths and the islands near the coast. A particular feature of the Goos maps was that they were embellished with "large descriptive

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the f ...

s" supplemented with sketches of ships, compass cards, and wind roses. His sea atlas of 1666, one of the most complete maritime atlases in existence in the second half of the seventeenth century, contained a frontispiece which featured ships in combat. Printed on thick paper with gilding, people bought the colourful maps just to decorate their offices and homes. At least one of Goos' atlases was published by his widow.

Gallery

File:1658 Wassende v Nierop.jpg, 1658 Paskaart Europa: Pieter Goos File:1660 66 Marsdiep Mase Goos.jpg, 1660 De Texel Stroom & De Mase: Pieter Goos File:1666 Orbis Terrarum Goos.jpg, 1666 Orbis Terrarum (World Map): Pieter Goos File:1666 Nieu Nederlandt Goos.jpg, 1666 Nieu Nederlandt (New Netherland): Pieter Goos File:MapEastIndian-PieterGoos.jpg, map of south Asia, southwest Asia, Australia, and the Indian Ocean

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goos, Pieter 1616 births 1675 deaths Engravers from Amsterdam 17th-century Dutch cartographers 17th-century engravers