At the end of the 16th century and well into the 17th some attempts were made by Icelanders to produce a map of the North Atlantic, probably in connection with Danish efforts to rediscover Greenland, but as far as the Icelandic settlements there and their voyages to the east coast of North America were concerned, the Icelanders themselves were the only source of information, so that their activities in this field were directed exclusively towards reconciling the old written accounts with modern maps and finding confirmation of the existence of the various places mentioned in them. The best-known and oldest of these maps is by Sigurdur Stefánsson, headmaster of the school at Skálholt (1590). Bishop Gudbrandur Thorláksson also made an important map of the North (1606). There exists also a drawing of the same region by Jón Gudmundsson, sometimes known as the Learned (ca. 1656); and finally bishop Thórdur Thorláksson made two such drafts in the years 1668-1669. Both these drawings and the map of bishop Gudbrandur exist in the original, but for the rest there are only copies of varying quality. This one is from the book Gronlandia antiqva by Thormódur Torfason.
These maps give only a very rough picture of Iceland, though they all represent an important stage in the history of the cartography of Greenland.