Until the entire world was mapped, terra incognita was not a metaphor. It existed and was acknowledged to exist. Yet the very acknowledgement of terra incognita raises a problem in the words themselves: without knowledge of it, how can land be represented? This study examines how unknown lands were represented from late Antiquity to 1600 - on maps, and in a variety of written texts, including poetry, treatises, political tracts and travel narratives.