Mapping East Asia: Transmission of Western Surveying in China, Japan and Korea (1580-1830)

Abstract

When the Jesuits firstly arrived in East Asia in the sixteenth century, they were not aware of the possible impacts in the following centuries brought by their European surveying instruments and techniques of making maps and terrestrial globes. With the instruments and the techniques, they transmitted cartographic knowledge to Chinese, Japanese and Korean intellectuals and supervised them performing surveying and making maps and terrestrial globes. This paper will discuss European surveying instruments, techniques of making maps and terrestrial globes and the tradition of Western surveying in the late pre-modern era of China, Japan and Korea, which collaboratively contributed to the creation of a new cartographic understanding of East Asia.