Matteo Ricci’s World Map（《坤舆万国全图》）includes among Chinese and Western knowledge systems，was the first to draw a Chinese map of the world by European scholars.The literature in terms of accuracy and richness of knowledge representation，far more than the contemporary European world map drawn，was the highest level of the world map.It was the first work to introduce to Chinese people the European geographic theories，including Geocentric Theory，Round-Earth Theory，the five continents and five zones.Meanwhile，it also introduces a number of land and sea animals with both images and annotations.Based on previous researches，this paper mainly analyzes the land and sea animals on the printed and colored copies of Ricci’s World Map of 1602 so as to demonstrate how this map helps to spread the new animal knowledge in the Age of Discovery to Chinese people，and how it relates animals in the New World（the North and South Americas）to those in the Old World（Asian，European and African continents）.This paper also reveals how Ricci attempted to preach Christianity by utilizing different symbols and metaphors of animals.As recorded in the Chinese translation of Western geographic works（汉文地理学西书）written by a Jesuit in the late Ming and early Qing dynasty，the animal knowledge presented in Ricci’s World Map of 1602 is the guidance of another two Chinese geographic works afterwards—Record of the Not-Tributary States（《职方外纪》）and World Map of Descriptive Text（《坤舆图说》）.In addition，by comparing the descriptions in the map with Chinese traditional literature on animal knowledge，this paper presents the important correlations between them.