Early Chinese Cartography - Maps in Ming Dynasty

Maps in Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty (Chinese: 明朝; pinyin: Míng Cháo), or Empire of the Great Ming (simplified Chinese: 大明国; traditional Chinese: 大明國; pinyin: Dà Míng Guó), was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic Hans (the main Chinese ethnic group), before falling to the rebellion led in part by Li Zicheng (李自成) and soon after replaced by the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. Although the Ming capital Beijing fell in 1644, remnants of the Ming throne and power (collectively called the Southern Ming) survived until 1662.

The period from Yuan Dynasty to Ming Dynasty, which have more than 300 years, was a long time of feudal dynasty period in China history. During this period, Chinese cartography did not have too much important development, but became much more mature in traditional cartography skills and there had more types of map. Such as, national map of mountains and cities, military defense map, coast defense, river defense map for flood control and nautical chart for marine navigation. And the characters of these map are: Based on China district area, mathematical basis using traditional methods, concentrating on accuracy of rivers and hills.

In 1579, Luo Hongxian published the Guang Yutu atlas, including more than 40 maps, a grid system, and a systematic way of representing major landmarks such as mountains, rivers, roads and borders. The Guang Yutu incorporates the discoveries of naval explorer Zheng He's 15th century voyages along the coasts of China, Southeast Asia, India and Africa.

Among maps in Ming Dynasty, Zhenghe map chart was the most influenced nautical chart. Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming government sponsored Zhenghe a series of seven naval expeditions to visit countries in Asia, Africa, and beyond. Thus, the Zhenghe map was the important one in Chinese cartography history and a specific map for marine navigation. And it had some special characteristics in presentation content and method:

  • For convince usage, the map sheet is continuously splicing from starting point to ending point of naval expedition.
  • Drawing the figure of hill or object related with orientation, which could relate the map and geography features and made it possible to find one’s position as soon as possible.
  • Drawing reef, port and island which is used for marine navigation and other geography features like residential spot, hills and so on.

Ming Dynasty had a developed map making method. Especially in the late Ming Dynasty, when the western rising natural scientific technology was gradually spread to China by some western Boanerges, the cartography skill had much more development. And at that time, the world map drawing by western was firstly imported to China and add material and area of China in it, which have a great influence in Chinese traditional cartography.

The Great Ming Amalgamated Map or Da Ming Hun Yi Tu (Chinese: 大明混一圖; pinyin: dàmíng hùnyī tú-, Manchu: dai ming gurun-i uherilehe nirugan) is a world map created in China. It was painted in colour on stiff silk and 386 x 456 cm in size. The original text was written in Classical Chinese, but Manchu labels were later superimposed on them.

It is one of the oldest surviving world maps from East Asia although the exact date of creation remains unknown. It depicts the general form of the Old World, placing China in the center and stretching northward to Mongolia, southward to Java, eastward to central Japan, and westward to Africa and Europe.

The Earth's curvature affects even the scale of the Chinese section of the map. Horizontally, it works out at about 1:820,000; but vertically it is around 1:1,060,000. The use of colour is particularly effective within China itself, including elegant touches like the ochre tint of the Huang He (Yellow River).

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