Orbis Terrarum is Latin for “the circle of lands,” i.e., the inhabited world or the known world in antiquity. The phrase combines orbis (circle, orb) with terrarum (of the lands) and is often used in reference to early world maps or descriptions of the entire globe as a single circular domain.

If you’d like, I can delve into how this term was used in specific historical contexts, such as Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum or the medieval T and O maps, and explain what those map types pictured and how they shaped European conceptions of the world.