Early Chinese Cartography - Survey Map in Qing Dynasty

Survey Map in Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty (Chinese: 清朝; pinyin: Qīng cháo; Wade–Giles: Ch'ing ch'ao; Manchu: Daicing gurun; Mongolian: Манж Чин Улс), also known as the Manchu Dynasty, was the last ruling dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 (ostensibly with a brief restoration during the short-lived Empire of China).

When the time of Emperor Kangxi’s reign in Qing Dynasty and because of import of western cartography skills, he realized Chinese map were not accurate enough and needed scientific methods to mapping. Thus he sponsored a national wide geodesy and mapping based on astronomical observation and triangulation measurement. It took ten years to complete the map named Huang Yu Quan Lan Tu from 1708 AD, which was the first on-the-spot survey map. It had 41 framings based on province boundary and have following characteristics:

• Using pseudo-cylindrical projection and latitude and longitude cartography methods
• Using writing Chinese and Manchu language to name place together that Manchu to name boundary and writing Chinese to name inland content
• Survey map of Taiwan province in the first time

Besides cartography, the unification of scale measurement and the field measurement of meridian of earth are both contributed to the development of cartography in Qing Dynasty and help to improve quality of maps in a great deal.