This map was published by the Esperanto Centre in Nijmegen, Netherlands, as part of the promotional campaign for the Esperanto course. The First Heemsteedsche Courant, which began on 31 January 1930.

Both the title at the top, If you want to communicate with the whole world, you must first learn Esperanto! (Anyone who wants to get along with everyone should first learn Esperanto); like the course description at the bottom, they are written in Dutch. But all the labels on the map, countries, seas, continents or islands, are written in Esperanto.

Esperanto is a planned language that was created in the late 19th century by Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, who in 1887 laid the foundations for it as a language that prioritised ease of learning, in order to facilitate communication between speakers of different languages. Its popularity boomed after the First World War, as evidenced by the emergence of numerous centres dedicated to its teaching in the 1920s and 1930s.

The map has a propagandistic slant, partly stemming from the need to promote the course itself, but it also conveys the idea that Esperanto was a form of international communication that would break down barriers. To reinforce this idea, the illustration is accompanied by a white and a black figure in the upper corners.

Sources

• If you want to communicate with the whole world, you must first learn Esperanto!
• World map in Esperanto