The first volume of the Civitates Orbis Terrarum was published in Cologne in 1572. This great city atlas, edited by Georg Braun and largely engraved by Franz Hogenberg, eventually contained 546 prospects, bird's eye views and maps of cities from all over the world. This book chooses 53 maps from Civitates--65 cities in all--from Cuzco in the Americas to Calcutta in the Indies--and interprets them, explaining what can be seen in the 16th century map, and how that differs from today's cities.