Along with his son Johannes Blaeu, Willem is considered one of the notable figures of the Netherlandish or Dutch school of cartography during its golden age in the 16th and 17th centuries.

As the son of a well-to-do herring salesman, he was destined to succeed his father in the trade, but his interests lay more in mathematics and astronomy.

He was also an editor and published works of Willebrord Snell, Descartes, Adriaan Metius, Roemer Visscher, Gerhard Johann Vossius, Barlaeus, Hugo Grotius, Vondel and the historian and poet Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft.

Evidently, Vermeer was particularly attached to a Willem Blaeu – Balthasar Florisz van Berckenrode map of Holland and West Friesland, as he represented it as a wall decoration in three of his paintings.

Though no longer extant, the map's existence is known from archival sources and the second edition published by Willem Blaeu in 1621, titled Nova et Accurata Totius Hollandiae Westfriesiaeq.