Stanford's Map of the Siberian Railway, the Great land Route to China and Korea

Edward Stanford's glorious folding map of the Trans-Siberian Railway, extending from Moscow and St. Petersburg in the west to Korea and Beijing in the east.

This map tracks what is undoubtedly one of the greatest civil engineering projects of the 20th century. Beginning in the city of Chelyabinsk in the west, the Trans-Siberian Railway is shown as completed to Vladivostok, forming a vital link between Russia's western heartland and its eastern cities. Multiple branch lines are also mapped, connecting to railway networks in northern China and Korea in the East, and with the Trans-Caspian railway in the west.

Dotted lines are used to represent railways in progress or under construction, the most significant of which is an enormous Russian railway projected to run from Kokand in modern-day Uzbekistan to Beijing, passing through Kyrgyzstan, Xinjiang, and Mongolia. This would have created an alternative southern route to the Trans-Siberian Railway and may have strengthened commercial ties between China and Russia had the Russian Revolution not intervened.

The Stanford firm took great pains to keep this map up to date, releasing new editions at least once per year. This example was published in August 1917, shortly after the start of the Russian Revolution in February of that year, but before the Bolsheviks rose to power in the October Revolution. As such, maps of Russia would have been of great interest to the British public, even if travelling to the region had become quite difficult and dangerous.

This example contains manuscript annotations from a former owner - several areas along the railway's route are carefully shaded in either blue or red pen, while certain cities are also underlined or circled. It is not clear what the author's intention was in making these markings. The author's name is inscribed on the inside cover of the map along with a date of March 1918, so it is possible that the markings are related to the ongoing Russian Civil War.

Printed colour. [Folded]