The Selden Map of China (Bodleian MS. Selden supra 105): Chinese merchant map of East and Southeast Asian shipping routes, c.1619-1629
東西洋航海圖 (modern title)
anonymous Chinese (Fujian) merchant cartographer
How we know
firsthand The author saw the places or people described.
firsthand mercantile compilation of sea routes from Quanzhou with a China interior copied from Ming printed maps
Research notes
- Date range disputed (1607-1629); unique object; the China interior copied from a Ming printed map (probably a Guang yu tu derivative).
Why it matters
Included as the best open example of non-official Chinese mapping of the early 17th century; its interest for the Tartary question is negative: it shows a maritime Chinese world in which the northern steppe is a blank margin, so it calibrates what Ming merchants did and did not map.
Places named
China, Korea, Japan, Ryukyu, Southeast Asia, Indian Ocean margin; northern China to the Great Wall; Manchuria and Mongolia only as margins
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.
