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Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan

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Beauplan is best known for his maps of Ukraine (which he spelt as Ukranie or Vkranie, with the "U" spelt as a "V"), and his 1660 book Description d'Ukranie ("Description of Ukraine"), first published in 1651 as Description des contrés du Royaume de Pologne ("Description of the Kingdom of Poland's Lands"), which was republished and translated many times in Western European languages throughout the rest of the 17th century and the entire 18th century.

Career

Beauplan served as artillery captain for the army of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland between 1630 and 1647 or 1648. He was sent to Ukraine where he served under Stanisław Koniecpolski in 1637–1638. He used his architectural skills while in the military. In 1639, he was involved in the rebuilding of the Kodak Fortress. He also built a fortress at Bar, worked on Brody Castle, and structures in Kremenchuk.

In 1639, Beauplan created the first "descriptive" map of Ukraine. He created a map of Ukraine in 1648 that had detailed border information. By 1654 he was working in Danzig. He created a map with a scale of 1:452,000 and an additional map scaled at 1:1,800,000. Both maps were engraved by Willem Hondius. These maps would go on to be published in Rouen, France and reproduced by Veniiamyn Kordt. Beauplan published another map of the Dnieper River in 1662.

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