That Olaus intended his map for use by navigators is clear from its title, and from the other navigational elements on the map: four large compasses, rhumb lines indicating directions from them, a pair of dividers, and distance scales. In general the ships depicted on the map are very well done, with the northern ships portrayed in their clinker-built style, indicating awareness of matters relating to ships and the sea.

In the middle of the sixteenth century the Carta Marina had been used by the German geographer Sebastian Munster for his portrayal of Scandinavia in his large Cosmographia; Beschreibung aller Lender (Cosmography; A Description of All Lands) published for the first time in 1544. He also used the large wall map in preparing his edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia published the next year. Abraham Ortelius (Flemish), a famous sixteenth-century cartographer who is often credited with producing the first real "atlas" of the world, wrote that he had used the wall map in creating his map of Scandinavia for his atlas (Theatrum orbis terrarum) published in 1570. From the late sixteenth century onward, however, no copy of the big wall map was known.