Chart of the South Sea (Pacific Ocean), manuscript on vellum, 1622 (LOC devised title: South Sea. Pacific Ocean)
Hessel Gerritsz (cartographer of the Dutch East India Company)
How we know
compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.
Compilation of VOC and Iberian navigational reports; Asian coast (Tartaria, Japan, Sina) is copied from contemporary Dutch charts, not observed by the author.
Research notes
- LOC metadata is extracted from the World Digital Library and 'may be extracted from partner institutions'; title devised by LOC staff. Gerritsz attribution is stated in the cartouche ('By Hessel Gerritsz ... Staten Generael der Vereenigde Nederlanden').
- Lead L006 resolved: earlier image download timeout was a technical failure; the IIIF pct: sizes fetch normally. Relevance to the Tartary question is limited to the single coastal label.
Why it matters
Marginal but concrete: the chart's upper-left corner labels the Asian mainland north of Japan and China as TARTARIA, showing that by 1622 Dutch chartmakers used Tartaria as the generic label for the northeast Asian coast facing the Pacific. Not a map of Tartary as such.
Places named
Pacific Ocean; East Asian coast: Tartaria, Japan, Sina, Korea; Americas
Who copied whom
No copying traced for this map yet. See the family trees.
Keep exploring
The maps drawn just before and just after this one.
