Frisland, also called Frischlant, Friesland, Frislanda, Frislandia, or Fixland, is a phantom island that appeared on virtually all of the maps of the North Atlantic from the 1560s through the 1660s.
[1] Its existence was given currency in manuscript maps of the 1560s by the Maggiolo family of Genoa, and the island was accepted and reproduced by cartographers Gerardus Mercator and Jodocus Hondius.
[3] Even in the mid-18th century, explorers' maps clearly depicted Frisland as separated from Greenland by a wide strait.
The myth of Frisland was gradually dispensed with as explorers, chiefly from England and France, charted and mapped the waters of the North Atlantic.
Frisland was shown as a roughly rectangular island, with three triangular promontories on its western coast.