Historic Map : Burr Map of Australia and New Zealand, 1834, Vintage Wall Art

This is an attractive 1834 first edition map of Australia and New Zealand by David H. Burr. It covers all of Australia, including Tasmania, and New Zealand along with a few Pacific Islands. Gone are many of the errors of the previous century with the coastlines accurately rendered. Inland though, much remained confused. Vast stretches of unmapped territory and speculative cartography fill central both Australia and New Zealand. In 1840, after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the British annexed New Zealand as part of the Australian colony of New South Wales. However, it separated from New South Wales to become a colony in its own right in 1841.

During this time in history, Burma was under British rule, while much of modern day Indonesia including Sumatra and parts of Borneo were part of the Dutch commercial colony of the Dutch East Indies. The French dominated Indochina, including Cambodia and Vietnam and most of the modern day Philippines were a Spanish territory called Spanish East Indies. Only Thailand (Siam) and China retained national sovereignty.

According to Ristow, although Burr is credited on the title page, he left this atlas incomplete. He was appointed as topographer to the U.S. Post Office, and of the siin xty-three maps finally included in this atlas, only completed eight. The rest of the maps were then completed by Illman and Pilbrow in Burr's style. This map was ‘Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1835 by Illman and Pilbrow in the Clerk's office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York', but was not published until the atlas was released in 1835. Published by D. S. Stone in Burr's New Universal Atlas.