Peter van der Krogt has identified four states, with three variants of the first state and two of the second. These may be summarized as follows: 

First state, 1617. 1a. First edition.
1b. [May 1617] Tierra del Fuego removed.
1c. [c.1618] Re-engraved to show Cape Horn, Le Maire Strait, revised coastline for New Guinea, and numerous newly discovered islands in the Pacific. 

Second state, [1622].
2a. In the 'Advice to the Reader', 'In ista quam', the signature and date are changed to: Guiljelmus Caesiius Auctor. Anno MDCXXII. If the original dedication is visible, two variants may be distinguished.
2b. The name 'Ianssonius' is changed to 'Caesius'. 2b. The name 'Caesius' is changed to 'Blaeuw'.

Third state, [between c.1622 and c.1645].
3a. In the 'Advice to the Reader', 'In ista quam', the signature is changed to: Guiljelmus Blaeu Auctor. Anno MDCXXII. Although the date is unaltered, judging by other publications, the spelling of 'Blaeu' indicates that this state dates from after c.1630. In the charter, 'Ianssonij' is changed to 'Blaeuw'.

Fourth state, [c.1645/48].
4a. The cartography is heavily revised by Joan Blaeu.

This globe is a revised version of Willem Blaeu's terrestrial globe by his son Joan Blaeu. The most drastic of Joan Blaeu’s updates involved the erasure of an entire dedication and cartouche bearing 'Advice to Reader' in order to make room for the findings of Abel Tasman’s voyages (c.1643) and to show Australia. Other areas of re-engraving included changes to Canada to show the 'discoveries' of Thomas Button (1612–1613), William Baffin (1616), and others, alterations to the coast of Greenland, and the removal of the name and diminution in size of the mythical island of Frisland in the North Atlantic Ocean. 

The printed overlays allowed Joan Blaeu to alter Japan to incorporate the discoveries of Maarten de Vries in 1643, and to shift the entire coast of North America approximately twenty degrees eastwards and show California as an island. However, north of California, he became less sure of himself and retained his father’s delineation. Here any attempt at a western coastline is abandoned, replaced instead by a large decorative cartouche surrounded by beavers and Native Americans.

This globe importantly presents the first printed documentation of Henry Hudson’s initial voyage and the first to give the name ‘Nieu Nederland’ to the area now known as New York, Manhattan, and Long Island. It was also the first depiction of Willem Corneliszoon Schouten and Jacob Le Maire’s 'discovery' of a navigable passage to the Pacific around Cape Horn (named after Schouten’s hometown of Hoorn), thereby rewriting European geography.

Physical: Rotating on brass pinions within a brass meridian ring with graduated scale; each set into a seventeenth-century Dutch wooden base with ebonised baluster supports, bun feet and central column, including an engraved horizon ring, adumbrating scales, calendar, and almanacs.

Collation: One of a pair of globes. This terrestrial globe has thirty-six hand-coloured engraved half gores, with two polar calottes.

’s twenty-six-inch globes are the pinnacle of seventeenth-century Dutch cartography. Their size and grandeur stand testimony to the confidence and wealth of the maritime mercantile nation at the height of its powers. While Blaeu intended the globe to be a luxury item aimed at wealthy merchants and noblemen, it was also the most advanced cartographic tool of its age, and was used as much as admired. 

After Blaeu's death in 1638, his son, Joan Blaeu undertook a major update of the globe to incorporate new geographic 'discoveries'. These were carried out with a combination of re-engraving the copperplates and printed overlays pasted on to the relevant portions of the globe.

The Blaeu family is synonymous with the finest mapmaking of the seventeenth century. Following Willem Blaeu’s death in 1638, his son Joan Blaeu expanded on his father’s works, such as the '

 Maior', the largest and grandest atlas of its time. In 1599, Willem Blaeu had designed a completely original globe and by 1616, his greatest globes measured an impressive twenty-six inches in diameter - the largest ever produced and remained unsurpassed in scale until the end of the seventeenth century.

In addition to the cartographical changes that Joan Blaeu incorporated in his revised version of his father's terrestrial globe, he also featured the 'discoveries' of Willem Corneliszoon Schouten and Jacob Le Maire in 1616. Schouten and Le Maire sought to circumvent the monopoly held by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) on all trade with the East via the Cape of Good Hope or through the Straits of Magellan. Their revelations were of such economic importance that Joan Blaeu’s globe was initially suppressed by the 

s General following a dispute between the VOC ,and Schouten and Le Maire’s Australian Company.

Joan Blaeu obtained this information from undisclosed sources. The documentation of Schouten and Le Maire’s voyage was sequestered by the East India Company who sought to publish it in a book featuring maps of their 'discoveries'. However, in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to obtain a charter to publish his voyage, Le Maire pressed for an injunction on Blaeu’s book. The injunction was eventually lifted and Blaeu published his globe with the new shape of Tierra del Fuego and a much-reduced southern continent of 'Magellanica'.

’s twenty-six inch globes are the apotheosis of seventeenth-century Dutch cartography. Their size and grandeur stand testimony to the confidence and wealth of a great maritime and trading nation at the height of its powers.

Blaeu's Terrestrial Floor Globe