Although not the first to publish a sea atlas in Amsterdam – that honour went to Janssonius – the first edition of Doncker’s ‘Zee-Atlas’, published in 1659, was superior both in coverage and utility to the rival publications of Johannes Janssonius and Arnold Colom, neither of which were reprinted after 1659.

Koeman notes: “Doncker’s charts were the most up-to-date in the second half of the seventeenth century. Although there is some similarity to those charts published by Van Loon, Goos, Lootsman, and Doncker, the latter’s charts are original. More frequently than … [his] contemporaries, Hendrik Doncker corrected and improved his charts. He often replaced obsolete charts by new ones … This consciousness of the high demands of correctness is reflected by the development of Doncker’s sea atlas