Mapping and Conceptions of Space
As Japan moved toward the 19th century, its awareness of the world beyond its islands gradually increased. Interactions with foreign visitors fostered an exchange of culture and knowledge that diffused into every area of society, including Japanese cartographic practices. Representations of space in both image and text indicate the geographical information deemed most important. From spiritual landmarks and cosmological beliefs to political boundaries and travel logistics, these historical maps and guides reveal how users’ conceptions of East Asia were shaped at the time. While overseas travel remained restricted throughout the 17th to 19th centuries, these materials demonstrate an expanding awareness of domestic and global geographies, depicted using both traditional Japanese mapmaking and novel observations from Western travelers.
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Nihon koezu 日本古絵図 (Manuscript map of Japan)
Japan, ca. 1800
Call Number: MS R5:3
Using traditional Japanese mapmaking conventions, this hand-drawn map depicts Japan around the year 1800, with land divided into provinces using different colors and thin, smooth lines reminiscent of those favored in premodern Japanese cartography. Red lines denoting paths of travel across Japan indicate a complex network of movement. Despite travel abroad being officially prohibited, text in the upper-left corner details distances to foreign countries, allowing for conceptions of space both in Japan and beyond its borders.
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Nagasaki chizu 長崎地図 (Map of Nagasaki)
Nagasaki: Bunkindō, 1860
Call Number: Orbis maps 2:75
The top-down perspective of a map of Nagasaki City shows Chinese and Dutch ships approaching the walled-off areas of the Chinese warehouses and Dejima island in the sea that strictly controlled transnational trade. The city area is divided into yellow blocks representing commoner wards. Rectangular white blocks label samurai residences, shops, and temples. The map also includes handwritten red dots that mark four Chinese temples and one Japanese Zen temple, possibly indicating the writer’s destinations.
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Manpō eitai shin zassho Nihonzu iri 萬寳永代新雜書日本圖入 (New Miscellany of Countless Eternal Treasures, with a Map of Japan)
Edo (Tokyo): Ensendō Tsubameya Yashichi, ca. 1758–1760
Call Number: Q151
This portable double-sided woodblock printed almanac contains encyclopedic information about Japan that including a ruler and details on astrology and history. Its prominently placed map of Japan lacks scale and navigational utility, yet it provides a schematic sense of geography, labeling provinces and noting their annual rice productivity. The back side features a printed record of calendar years from 1576 to 1760, which continues in handwriting that wraps around to the front side’s right margin, ending in 1792.
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Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore (1856–1928)
Westward to the Far East, a Guide to the Principal Cities of China and Japan with a Note on Korea
Montreal: Canadian Pacific Railway Co., 1893
Call Number: Josephson 2662
This English-language travel guide compiles information gathered by the American Eliza Scidmore during her extensive travels throughout Asia. Scidmore’s guide details what aspiring visitors might encounter during their journeys to East Asia in the late 19th century. The book outlines Japan’s strict tourism laws, which regulated which areas foreigners could visit and when. Nonetheless, the guide suggests that during their travels, visitors are always one rickshaw ride away from reshaping their conceptions of East Asia.