Continent Introductio", Waldseemüller noted that the earth is divided into four parts, Europe, Asia, Africa and the fourth part, which he named "America" after Amerigo Vespucci's first name. On the map, the word "America" was placed on part of South America. From the 16th century the English noun "continent" was derived from the term "continent land", meaning continuous or connected land and translated from the Latin "terra continens". The noun was used to mean "a connected or continuous tract of land" or mainland. It was not applied only to very large areas of land—in the 17th century, references were made to
A Map of Middle-earth A Map of Middle-earth A Map of Middle-earth is the name of two colour posters by different artists, published in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the American and British publishers of J. R. R. Tolkien's book "The Lord of the Rings". Both posters were based on cartography by J. R. R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien to depict the fictional region of Middle-earth. None of these maps cover the whole continent of Middle-earth; instead they only portray the north-western part of the continent, where the story of "The Lord of the Rings" takes place. The earlier poster, signed "BRem"