Ludovico Georgio (known in Spanish as Luis Jorge de Barbuda) was the Portuguese geographer who made the map of China that was incorporated into the celebrated atlas of the Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The map was first published in 1584 in an Additamentum, which is how he named the additions he printed to complete his atlas.

At the time, Ludovico’s map was the best existing depiction of the region of China. It not only faithfully represented the fifteen provinces making up China but also detailed around 240 towns and cities. In it, one can clearly make out the Great Wall, Formosa (present-day Taiwan) and Macao (wrongly placed on the map, as it is shown on the right bank of the Pearl River estuary). It also marks the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, five inland lakes, the Gobi Desert and areas of western Japan and southeast Asia. The map also includes images of Tartar yurt camps which, apart from providing historical information, were also used as ornamental motifs.

The back of the map contains a number of Latin texts based on letters by the Jesuit priest Bernardino Escalante, published in 1577 in Seville under the title of Discurso de la navegacion que los Portugueses hacen a los Reinos y Provincias de Oriente, y de la noticia que se tiene de las grandezas del Reino de la China [Discourse of the navigation made by the Portuguese to the kingdoms and provinces of the Orient, and of the existing knowledge of the greatness of the Kingdom of China].