Article ID: CBB854183550

Not Just a Jesuit Atlas of China: Qing Imperial Cartography and Its European Connections (2017)

unapi

In the literature, the ‘Overview Maps of Imperial Territories’ or Huangyu quanlan tu 皇輿全覽圖, is mostly referred to as ‘the Jesuit atlas of China’. The reason is that this early eighteenth-century atlas of all Qing China’s territories plus Korea and Tibet is assumed to have resulted from European missionaries importing European cartographic practices. In this essay, I argue that this view is outdated and can no longer be sustained. By revisiting the background of the missionaries’ involvement in cartographic exchanges between Asia and Europe, the techniques used for surveying Qing territories and the production of the resulting atlases, I show that the mapping project behind the ‘Overview Maps of Imperial Territories’ is best understood as a creative answer to the unique needs of Qing frontier management and imperial control, made possible by the integration, in mensurational and in representational terms, of European and East Asian cartographic practices.

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Authors & Contributors
Cams, Mario
Jami, Catherine
Elman, Benjamin A.
Haohao Zhu
Wu, Huiyi
Zhou, Pingping
Journals
East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine
The Catholic Historical Review
Social History of Medicine
Revue d'Histoire des Sciences
Journal of Early Modern History
Journal of Asian Studies
Publishers
Oxford University Press
Shanghai san lian shu dian
Rowman & Littlefield
Hackett Publishing Company
Faber & Faber
Brill
Concepts
Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence
Science and religion
Cartography
Transmission of ideas
Missionaries and missions
East Asia, civilization and culture
People
Ricci, Matteo
Xue, Fengzuo
Vigenère, Blaise de
Sambiasi, Francesco
Kangxi, Emperor of China
Hallerstein, Augustin von
Time Periods
17th century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
16th century
18th century
Ming dynasty (China, 1368-1644)
Renaissance
Places
China
Beijing (China)
Portugal
Mongolia
Paris (France)
Institutions
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
Académie Royale des Sciences (France)
Académie des Sciences, Paris
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