lettered by Abraham Ortelius, 1570
The vault

How it was made

Three layers of data

  • The catalogue. 422 records: 303 written sources (IDs W001 to W303) and 119 maps (M001 to M119), each with a card describing its date, places, peoples, access, and how its author knew. The catalogue was compiled from library, archive and scholarly catalogues in English, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, German, Russian, Persian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai, Tatar, Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan and Japanese.
  • The site data. Structured dates, a gazetteer of 356 places (326 with a point), 138 peoples and polities, an evidence class for every record, 73 map lineage links, and IIIF image routes for 98 maps. Built 2026-09-28.
  • The passages. 2,029 short extracts from 303 of the written sources, sorted into five trails. See the next section.
  • Passage attestations (in preparation). Every place a source names Tartary or a related term, with page, original wording and what it refers to. This layer will replace the provisional card-level readings on What “Tartar” meant.

The passages

The passages are a reading layer on top of the catalogue. 303 of the 303 written sources have a plain-words profile, and the 225 whose text the project holds were read for passages: the scanned pages that mention Tartars or Tartary were read with AI assistance, and the passages that say something specific were kept and sorted into five trails. The richest sources were read closely and the rest lightly, so the passages are a selection, never everything a source says. The other 78 have a profile only, because their text is not held here or the stored scan could not be searched.

  • The quote is copied from the page it cites, in the original language, and kept to 70 words or fewer. Spelling is tidied only where the scan's machine-read text was broken (long s, split words, garbled letters).
  • The translation, where the page is not in English, is a working translation made for this atlas (964 passages). It is a guide to the original, which is always shown with it.
  • The summary above each quote is the atlas's own plain-words account of what the page says.
  • The page link opens the scan at the page quoted. Read the page before citing a passage.

Each passage carries a label for how the author knew that one thing, which can differ from the source as a whole:

  • Saw it The author describes something they saw themselves. (839 passages)
  • Heard it The author was told this by someone else. (557 passages)
  • Read it The author took this from an earlier book or document. (437 passages)
  • Legend or rumour A legend, a rumour, or a tale the author repeats. (156 passages)
  • Official record An official document or a record made at the time. (20 passages)
  • Mixed Part seen, part heard or read. (20 passages)

Checking the quotes. Every quote was compared by machine with the stored text of the page it cites. 1,862 of 2,029 match their page. 97 were transcribed from the page image because the stored text of that scan is unreadable (blackletter, Fraktur and Arabic-script prints mostly), and each of those says so. 70 could not be confirmed automatically because the stored text is damaged, and each carries a note asking you to check the page. No passage has yet been checked line by line by a human editor.

The rides

Ride with a traveler sets 6 journeys out stop by stop. Each route was written with AI assistance from the passages and the standard account of the journey, then checked a second time against the edition the atlas cites, and the dates follow that edition. A passage sits at a stop only when the traveler saw, heard or wrote it at or about that place on that journey. The rest of the source's passages stay on its own page. Camps that moved and places scholars still argue over are drawn as rough positions, and every ride ends with a list of what is still uncertain. The line joins the stops and is not the exact road. No route has yet been checked by a human editor.

Dates

Every record carries the date it was written or drawn, and a precision label saying how far to trust it. Written sources also carry the period they describe. A map may carry a later impression year, a modern facsimile year, or a content date when it prints much older geography, as a 1482 Ptolemy printing does. The map and the timelines use the date made.

  • exact year (exact)
  • approximate (circa)
  • within a decade (decade)
  • a range (range)
  • within a century (century)
  • debated (debated range)
  • disputed (disputed)

11 records carry a dating note explaining a manual decision. One record, the Rossi “Marco Polo” sheet (M029), has no accepted date and is never plotted on a timeline.

How places are plotted

Each place carries a coordinate basis, and the map draws each basis differently so an approximate point never looks surveyed. 70 points are editorial approximations or label positions.

  • Surveyed point. A modern coordinate for a town, site or feature, taken from Wikipedia or Wikidata.
  • River, plotted at its mouth. A river's reference coordinate, usually its mouth. The river itself runs far from the dot.
  • Polity, plotted at its capital. A state or dynasty drawn at its capital city. Its territory was much larger.
  • Approximate point. An editor's approximate point for a historical region. The region had no single location.
  • Map label position. Where this label usually sits on period maps. A label, not a surveyed place.
  • No point by design. The name covers too much, or moved too much from map to map, for one point to be honest.

The basemap shows modern coastlines, lakes and rivers from Natural Earth. The Aral Sea appears at its modern, shrunken extent. Historical regions are points only for now; outlines are a later job.

How the author knew

Every record is sorted by the evidence its card describes. The card's own wording travels with the class on each record page, so the sorting can be checked.

  • firsthand. The author saw the places or people described. (133 records)
  • mixed. Part firsthand observation, part drawn from other sources. (49 records)
  • compilation. Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly. (171 records)
  • informant testimony. Written down from what informants reported. (14 records)
  • official or contemporary record. An official document or a record made at the time. (18 records)
  • claimed or disputed. Authorship, date or authenticity is claimed or contested. (9 records)
  • not stated. The catalogue does not say how the author knew. (28 records)

Map lineage

A lineage link is stated when a catalogue or the map itself names the source, and probable when the evidence is strong but indirect. Probable links are drawn dashed.

What the atlas does not claim

  • A place or people appears on a record only when its catalogue card names it. A place the source discusses but the card does not name is missing.
  • Search the atlas for a name and find nothing, and that proves only that the catalogue has not recorded it.
  • The catalogue records what the sources say, where, and in what form. It draws no conclusion about Tartary beyond what each source shows.