lettered by Abraham Ortelius, 1570
Map · Chinese

Tian di tu: late-Ming woodblock atlas of the heavens, China, the provinces, Chinese Turkestan and the South Seas, 1601 (LOC Hummel copy)

[天地圖]

Zuo Junheng (fl. 17th century)

A page from the volume that holds the map: Tian di tu: late-Ming woodblock atlas of the heavens, China, the provinces, Chinese…, Zuo Junheng, 1601
Picture: Library of Congress. This picture shows a page from the volume, not the map itself. See it at full size at the library

How we know

compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.

compilation of Ming popular geography (Guang yu tu derived) with a Western Regions sheet

Research notes
  • Date conflict: catalogue 1601 versus former call number 1639; place names labelled by hand.

Why it matters

A cheap late-Ming atlas that includes a Western Regions (Chinese Turkestan) sheet and a Jurchen north-east sheet on the eve of the Manchu rise, showing what ordinary Ming readers were told about the northern frontier.

Places named

China and 15 provinces; Chinese Turkestan; Dongbei Nüzhen (Jurchen north-east); South Seas, Japan

Who copied whom

Earlier in the chain
  • Guang yu tu M106, 1555
    this one was drawn from it (probable)
    Popular derivatives of the Guang yu tu

See the family trees

Keep exploring

The maps drawn just before and just after this one.

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