Rare and beautiful wall map in Japanese, the first map of the world on Mercator's Projection published in Japan.

This wall map of the world was a major advance in Japanese cartography. According to the text on the lower margin, its geography was based on an unknown map of the world by C.F. Sammler first issued in 1857. When this map was issued in 1862, generally speaking, it furthered Japan's geographical knowledge enormously. Bearing in mind that up to this point, Japanese geographers drew the world based on a map published by the Dutch firm of Covens and Mortier in the 1730s, this piece must have been a revelation. The circumnavigation of Australia, the details of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America and the Bering Straits, the Russian claims in and surveys of Asiatic Russia, the emergence of Antarctica all must have been revolutionary geographical concepts. In the geopolitical sense, this map would also have introduced the new world order after the Napoleonic Wars, including the concept of British India, the new borders of the United States after the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Mexican American War, the Dutch East Indies, French Indochina and a newly independent South America, now consisting of multiple states.

The map prepares the reader for these new concepts in several ways: an illustrated border of 159 flags surrounds the map, introducing both the old and new countries of the world; detailed commentary, compiled by Tobikawa Yoshikuni and Kimura Takeshi, summarises many of the geographical advances as well as the history behind them; the map also shows the routes of multiple important marine explorers, many with small explanatory notes; as well as explorer's routes, there are also multiple modern shipping routes with distances between ports. There is a small diagram of comparative mountain sizes on the upper left and a large, modern compass rose on the lower centre.

Due to its size, its publication as a folding map, its importance and prestige and no doubt its original price, it is likely that relatively few of these maps would have been produced, and even fewer survived, making this a particularly rare item. This school of Japanese maps produced in the second half of the nineteenth century are almost always now backed on tissue for conservation purposes; this example is an exception to this, being in particularly good condition, although there have been some repairs to light worming.



Original hand colour. Folded. [WLD4505]