It is not surprising that Cosmographia was published from seven different cities given its popularity. Adapting the book to the perceived needs of readers in these communities may account for its numerous versions and for its appearance in four languages.

It first appeared in Landshut (or Landshutae as it is Latinized on the 1524 title page) where Apianus lived. Landshut was founded in 1204 by Duke Ludwig I of Bavaria, and served as the dukedom's seat from 1398 to 1503. In medieval times it was renowned as a crafts center, and it is possible that the town's printing capacity grew out of the circle of goldsmiths active there. Only the first edition was printed at Landshut.

Apianus moved from Landshut to Ingolstadt in 1527, when he was appointed professor of mathematics at the university, and remained there until his death in 1552. Ingolstadt was the site of publication for the first three editions of Cosmographiae introductio. With his brother Georg, Petrus Apianus established his own private press here, from which he published maps, astronomical tables, and, most famously, the lavish 1540 Astronomicon Caesareum (Caesar's Astronomy), called by Owen Gingerich "the most spectacular contribution of the book-maker's art to sixteenth-century science."

Antwerp, where more than half of all known editions of Cosmographia were printed, was described by Guicciardini as the place where people from all the nations of the known world could feel themselves at home. Printing was a growth industry in Antwerp: R.A. Peddie states that while there were twelve printing offices in Antwerp in the 15th century, it had fifty-six in the 16th century. He goes on to say, "We find in the books which are published from 1500 to 1540 a complete and vivid image of the eager search for new knowledge which then prevailed." The Latin editions of 1529, 1533, 1534, 1539, 1540, 1544, 1545, 1550, 1553, 1564, 1574 and 1584, the French editions of 1544 and 1581, the Spanish editions of 1548 and 1575, and the Dutch editions of 1537, 1545, 1533, 1561, and 1573 all were produced in Antwerp. It was an appropriate city in which to print so many editions of Cosmographia, for it nurtured botanists and cartographers as well as artists, printers, and engravers. A Renaissance harbor, it served as a mecca for mariners returning from the newly discovered lands around the globe.

Six editions of Cosmographiae introductio were printed in Venice, appearing in 1533, 1535, 1537, 1541, 1544 and 1554. In spite of Venice's central position in the book trade during the 15th century, events and conditions contributed to a shrinking in the number of printing establishments there. Rudolf Hirsch says that "Of the more that 100 establishments which began work before 1490 only 23 survived into the last decade of the century and less than ten were still active by the year 1500." It would appear that the focus shifted, and Antwerp seems to have held the dominant position in the publication of the Cosmographia proper.

Cologne was an enormously important printing center in the 15th century. It was here that the title page first emerged (albeit in a simplified form), here that the signature marks used by scribes in the manuscript tradition were first applied to the new medium of printing, and here that pages (as over against leaves) were first printed with numbers. It is thought that Caxton may have first been introduced to the craft of printing on a visit he made to Cologne in 1471-72. For all of this distinguished heritage, however, only two editions of Cosmographia were printed at Cologne, and they were separated by 30 years, the first appearing in 1544, the second in 1574.

16th century France saw the production of seven versions of Cosmographia, all of them from Paris. Five of these were in Latin, still the language of the scholarly community, two were in Francien, the Parisian language, which was made the official language of France by the edict of King Francis I in 1539. Three versions of the abbreviated Cosmographiae introductio were issued in 1550 and 1551, two of which were straightforward reproductions of the work as it had appeared before. One production, however, consisted of two works, separately paged, but issued and generally bound together, and bore the title of the first work: Elementale cosmographicum, quo totius & Astronomiae et Geographiae rudimenta, certissimus brevissimisque docentur apodixibus, (Elemental cosmography in which all the rudiments of astronomy and geography are most clearly and briefly shown and demonstrated) comprised 35 pages. The second work was Apianus' Cosmographiae introductio cum quibusdam Geometriae ac Astronomiae principiis ad eam rem necessariis, running for 38 pages with the usual maps and woodcut figures. The other four versions (two in Latin and two in French) featured a new arrangement of the book's illustrations, and were printed in italic type. There was one Latin and one French edition produced in 1551, and both appeared again in 1553 with minor typographical modifications.

Three versions of Apianus' book, all in Dutch, were produced in Amsterdam, the first in 1592. It was a major augmentation of the Dutch edition of 1573, growing from 152 pages to 256. A new variation of the title page's terrestrial globe was made, and the extracts from the works of Lopez de Gomara and Jerome Girara together with a listing of West Indian towns and cities, all of which were in the 1575 Spanish, the 1581 French and the 1584 Latin editions, were included in these Amsterdam productions. The editions of 1598 and 1609 contained the same material, and all three contained sections printed in gothic, italic and roman type.