Oceano Pacifico, composed in 1922 by the Italian geographer Mario Baratta, presents the world’s largest ocean as the organizing stage for modern commerce and power. Issued by the Istituto Geografico De Agostini of Novara—the house that, after its 1919 acquisition, burst onto the international scene with its first great atlas in 1922—this chart distills the geopolitical aftermath of the Great War into a lucid, ocean‑centered view. Continents are arrayed as coastal rims around the Pacific basin, their political boundaries crisply distinguished to reveal the era’s alignments from Asia to the Americas and Australia. The result is both a study in maritime geography and a quietly authoritative register of early twentieth‑century statehood and exchange.

Baratta’s design marries scientific precision with the ornate clarity characteristic of De Agostini’s color lithography. A fine graticule of latitude and longitude scaffolds the composition, while a comprehensive legend decodes symbols for settlements, roads, drainage, and hydrography. The scale—1:50,000,000—balances breadth with legibility, permitting continental drainage systems to converse visually with littoral detail and island chains. Political tints and delicate coastal delineations guide the eye from the large geometry of oceanic space to the small hierarchies of ports and routes. The effect is a cosmopolitan tableau: elegant, didactic, and immediately navigable.

The Pacific itself is portrayed as a woven field of passage. Sailing routes arc from Japan and China across to the United States and Canada, and from Australia through the Pacific Islands toward Mexico and South America, registering the steamship era’s dependable corridors. Major countries—Japan, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, China, and the United Kingdom and France through their overseas possessions—appear with borders that reflect the political realities of the day. To the south and east, Brazil and Argentina anchor South America’s Atlantic‑Pacific exchange, while Cuba and other Caribbean gateways hint at inter‑oceanic connectors. Coastlines, islands, and interior waters are rendered with a measured elegance that threads physical geography to policy and trade.

Inset maps turn the abstract geometry of ocean routes into the practical theater of harbors and roadsteads. European giants—Amburgo, Genova, Anversa, Rotterdam, Liverpool, Marsiglia—stand beside Yokohama, Singapore, and Hong Kong, tracing a commercial arc from the Mediterranean to the South China Sea. The Atlantic’s great hinge points—Nuova York and Avana—and the southern metropolises—Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires—join Sydney y Porto Jackson, mapping a globe of interlinked entrepôts. These vignettes do more than ornament: they encode how commodities, migrants, and ideas flowed through the world’s choke points, making the Pacific not an isolated expanse but the nexus of a planetary network.

As part of De Agostini’s ambitious atlas of 304 maps uniting physical, political, and economic geography, Oceano Pacifico captures a world consolidating its marine infrastructure and administrative borders. Baratta’s hand brings scholarly restraint to a time of accelerating interconnectivity, when roads stitched interiors to coasts and maritime routes bound continents into trading systems. The map’s political delineations and maritime tracery offer a snapshot poised between empires and emergent nation‑states, at once documentary and predictive. It is an oceanic portrait that reads like a ledger of early twentieth‑century power: stately, exacting, and suffused with the confidence of a cartography intent on explaining how the world moves.

Countries and regions on this map

• Countries: Japan, United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Singapore, China, Cuba.
• Regions: Pacific Islands; Mediterranean Regions (insets for specific cities).
• Continents: Asia, North America, South America, Australia.
• Inset maps featuring various world ports that contribute to global maritime trade, showcasing significant coastal cities.

Notable Features & Landmarks

• Major political boundaries delineated across the Pacific region.
• Insets illustrating detailed maps of significant world ports.
• Geographical features such as coastlines, islands, and bodies of water.
• Sailing routes marked across the Pacific, emphasizing maritime navigation and trade.
• Latitudinal and longitudinal grid lines for navigation and reference.
• A comprehensive legend indicating various symbols used on the map.
• Bar scale representing distances in kilometers for geographical orientation.

Historical and design context

• Map Title: Oceano Pacifico (1922), created by Mario Baratta.
• Publisher: Istituto Geografico de Agostini (Novara, Italy); founded in 1901, gained prominence after a 1919 acquisition; first great atlas released in 1922.
• Themes: Political geography and major maritime routes reflecting early 20th-century global trade.
• Geographical focus: Detailed depiction of countries, regions, and key maritime routes within the Pacific.
• Design style: Color lithography with an ornate, era-typical cartographic palette that highlights geographical features.
• Cartographic apparatus and scale: Latitudinal/longitudinal graticule, legend, and a scale of 1:50,000,000.
• Historical significance: Part of a 304-map atlas uniting physical, political, and economic geography; documents early 20th-century global interconnectivity.

Please double check the images to make sure that a specific town or place is shown on this map. You can also get in touch and ask us to check the map for you.

This map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 70in (180cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

The model in the listing images is holding the 18x24in (45x60cm) version of this map.

The fifth listing image shows an example of my map personalisation service.

If you’re looking for something slightly different, check out my collection of the best old maps to see if something else catches your eye.

Please contact me to check if a certain location, landmark or feature is shown on this map.

This would make a wonderful birthday, Christmas, Father's Day, work leaving, anniversary or housewarming gift for someone from the areas covered by this map.

This map is available as a giclée print on acid free archival matte paper, or you can buy it framed. The frame is a nice, simple black frame that suits most aesthetics. Please get in touch if you'd like a different frame colour or material. My frames are glazed with super-clear museum-grade acrylic (perspex/acrylite), which is significantly less reflective than glass, safer, and will always arrive in perfect condition.

This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.

For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.