East Asian Cartographic Print Culture

East Asian Cartographic Print Culture

The Late Ming Publishing Boom and its Trans-Regional Connections

Alexander Akin examines how the expansion of publishing in the late Ming dynasty prompted changes in the nature and circulation of cartographic materials in East Asia. Focusing on mass-produced printed maps, this book investigates a series of path-breaking late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century works in genres including geographical education, military affairs, and history, analysing how maps achieved unprecedented penetration among published materials, even in the absence of major theoretical or technological changes like those that transformed contemporary European cartography. By examining contemporaneous developments in neighboring Choson Korea and Japan, the study demonstrates the crucial importance of considering the broader East Asian sphere in this period as a network of communication and publication, rather than as discrete units with separate cartographic histories. It also reexamines the place of the Jesuits in this context, arguing that in printing maps on Ming soil they should be seen as participants in the local cartographic publishing boom and its trans-regional repercussions.
  • Cover
  • Table of Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
    • Methodology
    • Why maps matter
    • The question of ‘accuracy’
    • Problems of cartographic preservation
    • The cultural marketplace vs. the State
    • Perspectives on the late Ming publishing boom
  • 1. Printed Cartography in the Late Ming
    • Old Typologies, New Audiences
    • Gazetteer
      • Da Ming yitong zhi 大明一統志 (Gazetteer of the Great Ming’s unification)
    • Atlas
      • Guang yutu 廣輿圖 (Enlarged Atlas)
    • Maritime defense
      • Chouhai tubian 籌海圖編 (Illustrated compendium on coastal strategy)
    • Encyclopedias
      • Tushu bian 圖書編 (Compendium of illustrations and texts)
      • Sancai tuhui 三才圖會 (Illustrated compendium of the three fields of knowledge)
    • Popular miscellanies
    • Text and cartography
    • Conclusion
  • 2. Chinese Historical Cartographies
    • Mapping the Past
    • The Yugong and historical cartography
    • A milestone in historical cartography: The Lidai dili zhizhang tu 歷代地理指掌圖 (Convenient historical atlas)
    • Mapping the past for the masses: Historical cartography in the Ming publishing boom
    • The historical map in gazetteers and other local works
    • Buddhism, in time and place
    • Conclusion
  • 3. The Jesuits as Participants in the Late Ming Publishing Boom
    • Near Eastern influences before the Jesuits
    • Interpretations of Jesuit cartography
    • Mapping out accommodation: The cartographic strategy of Matteo Ricci
    • Accommodation in Ricci’s world maps
    • Influence in Ming intellectual circles
    • Citation of Ricci in the Tushu bian
    • Citation in the Sancai tuhui
    • Rejection of Jesuit cartography
    • European ‘echoes’
    • Conclusion
  • 4. Chosŏn Cartography in a Trans-regional Context
    • Scholarship on Korean cartography
    • The Sǔngnam’s cartography
    • Post-Sǔngnam works
    • Limits of Ming and Jesuit influence
    • The Ch’ŏnhado (Map of All Under Heaven)
    • Reverse influence: The case of the Chaoxian tushuo
    • Conclusion
  • 5. Japanese Cartography between East and West
    • Historiographical approaches
    • European cartography in Japan
    • Jesuits and their maps
    • After the bans
    • Ming works and the Buddhist/European synthesis
    • Buddhist cartography
    • Ming antecedents, Ricci, and the Wa-Kan sansai zue 和漢三才圖會 (Japanese and Chinese illustrated compendium of the three fields of knowledge)
    • Conclusion
  • Conclusion
  • Appendices
    • Appendix 1
    • Appendix 2
    • Appendix 3
    • Appendix 4
    • Appendix 5
  • Bibliography
  • Index
  • List of Illustrations
    • Figure 1.1 General overview of Ming territory from the 1461 edition of the Da Ming yitong zhi
    • Figure 1.2 Huguang province as shown in the Guang yutu
    • Figure 1.3 Bird’s-eye view looking out from part of the Zhejiang coast toward the sea in the Chouhai tubian
    • Figure 1.4 Illustration of outcroppings visible while sailing to Japan
    • Figure 1.5 Illustration of the reuse of a standardized map of Japan
    • Figure 1.6 Map of ancient Yangzhou, one of the Nine Regions, from the Tushu bian
    • Figure 1.7 Zhifang shi jiuzhou shanze chuanjin zongtu (Official map of the Nine Regions’ mountains, marshes, and waterways)
    • Figure 1.8 Jiuzhou tianfu dengze tu (Illustration of land quality and tax levels of the Nine Regions)
    • Figure 1.9 Huayi gujin xingsheng zhi tu (Map of Chinese and Barbarian topographic advantages, past and present)
    • Figure 1.10a and b The Tushu bian’s dual view of Zhejiang copied from the Huangyu kao, highlighting topography versus administration
    • Figure 1.11 Map of the border region of Jizhou from the Tushu bian, based on a map from the Guang yutu but with the grid removed
    • Figure 1.12 Map of the Ryukyus
    • Figure 1.13 Huguang province as shown in the Sancai tuhui
    • Figure 2.1 Typical examples of the two most common forms of representation used in discussions of the ancient text of the Yugong (Tribute of Yu)
    • Figure 2.2 ink rubbing of the 1136 Yujitu (Tracks of Yu)
    • Figure 2.3 Historical map of the Yuanfeng era (1078-1085), part of the twelfth-century Lidai dili zhizhang tu (Convenient historical atlas) as adapted and reprinted in the Sancai tu hui encyclopedia
    • Figure 2.4 Yugong suo zai suishan junchuan zhi tu (Map for ‘determining the high mountains and the great rivers’ from the Yugong)
    • Figure 2.5 Representation of the dynastic succession of China’s capitals
    • Figure 2.6 Two of the remaining local historical maps included in Qian Yikai’s 1721 prefectural gazetteer of Jiaxing, depicting the general layout of the area during the Five Dynasties and the Ming
    • Figure 2.7 The first map in the Fajie anli tu (Illustration of the Establishment of the Dharma Realm [i.e., Structure of the Universe])
    • Figure 2.8 Fajie anli tu map of the Jambudvīpa continent
    • Figure 2.9 Jambudvīpa as the southernmost of four continents
    • Figure 2.10 Earth as one of countless worlds
    • Figure 3.1 Jesuit-style world map illustrated in the Tushu bian
    • Figure 3.2 Diqiu tushuo (地球圖說, ‘Explanation of the map of the globe’), a passage in the Tushu bian based on the text of Matteo Ricci’s preface
    • Figure 3.3 World map from the Sancai tuhui
    • Figure 4.1 Map of Ch’ungch’ŏng Province, located on the pages before Chapter 14 in the 1611 edition of the Sinjŭng tongguk yŏji sŭngnam
    • Figure 4.2 Map of Ch’ungch’ŏng Province in a Chosŏn-era manuscript atlas
    • Figure 4.3 The first provincial map in Li Chengxun’s 1600 Chaoxian tushuo
    • Figure 5.1 A portion of a map showing the sites of wokou pirate raids on the Ming coast, from the 1693 edition of the Ishō Nihon den
    • Figure 5.2 The 1710 Nansenbushū bankoku shōka no zu (Visualized map of Jambudvīpa’s myriad lands)
    • Figure 5.3 The world map as depicted in Chapter 55 of the Wa-Kan sansai zue