この図の右上に描かれている島が日本である。日本人の学者からは、この形をネズミの背、タコの頭、髑髏形と称されている。

Taken from a late 16^th-century edition of Ptolemy's Geographia, a classical text which was constantly revised over the years by various cartographers, this map shows the islands of Japan in the top right-hand corner of the map of Asia. It was drawn by the prolific Flemish cartographer Ortelius, who was not consistent in his representations of Japan, even within the same atlas. Various Japanese scholars have referred to the shape of Japan in this map as resembling a skull, the back of a rat and the head of an octopus.