An extremely rare 400-year-old Chinese map, which put the emerging superpower at the centre of the world, went on display yesterday at the Library of Congress in Washington.

Inspiring delight and reverence from the world's leading cartographers, it is the first Chinese map to combine both eastern and western cartography and show the Americas.

The document, which became the second most expensive rare map ever sold when it was bought for $1m by the James Ford Bell Trust in October, is the work of Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary from Italy. One of the first westerners to live in what is now Beijing in the early 1600s, Ricci was famed for introducing western science to China, where he created the map in 1602 at the request of Emperor Wanli.

Shown publicly for the first time in North America, the map provides an impressively detailed vision of the different regions of the world with pictures and annotations.

Africa is noted as having the world's highest mountain and longest river, while Florida is identified as "the Land of Flowers". A description of North America mentions "humped oxen" or bison and wild horses, and there is even a reference to the little-known region of "Ka-na-ta".

Ricci, revered and buried in his adopted home, provided a brief description of the discovery of the Americas. "In olden days, nobody had ever known that there were such places as North and South America or Magellanica," he wrote, using a label that early mapmakers gave to Australia and Antarctica. "But a hundred years ago, Europeans came sailing in their ships to parts of the sea coast, and so discovered them."

The map also includes several places in Central and South American, including "Wa-ti-ma-la" (Guatemala), "Yu-ho-t'ang" (Yucatan) and "Chih-Li" (Chile).

Ricci's map, which measures 3.6 by 1.5 meters and is printed on six rolls of delicate rice paper, has become something of a holy grail for map experts, earning the nickname the "Impossible Black Tulip of Cartography" because its discovery proved so elusive.

The Ricci map, one of only two to survive in good condition, will be displayed alongside another of the world's rarest maps, the Waldseemuller world map, bought by the library for $10m in 2003.

For those who cannot make the pilgrimage to Washington, there will still be the chance to see the precious document. The Library plans to scan the map for the World Digital Library, so scholars and students around the world can pore over it online.

Ford W Bell, co-trustee of the James Ford Bell Trust, and grandson of General Mills founder James Ford Bell, said the map was "one of the most significant cartographical documents ever produced". He added: "The map brings together the best of western science, mathematics and geography to respectfully show China, the western hemisphere and five continents in their relative positions."

The map, held for years by a private collector in Japan, made its way to the US via London, where it was bought from rare book seller Bernard J Shapero. It will eventually reside in the Bell Library at the University of Minnesota.