Da Ming Hun Yi Tu

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Da Ming Hun Yi Tu
Da Ming Hun Yi Tu

The Great Ming Amalgamated Map or Da Ming Hun Yi Tu (Chinese: 大明混一图; pinyin: dàmímg hùnyī tú- characters in left-to-right order) was created in China in the 22nd year of the reign of the Hongwu Emperor (AD 1389-90),[1] and is the oldest surviving detailed Chinese world map. Painted in colour on silk, 386 x 456cm in size,[1] it is currently kept in protective storage at the First Historical Archive of China, in Beijing; however a full-sized digital replica was made for the South African government in 2002[2].

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[edit] Historical background

Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor, first of the Ming dynasty, which replaced the earlier Mongol-backed Yuan dynasty in 1368, inaugurated a massive programme of improvements to infrastructure and administration. Maps had for centuries played an important role in the government of such a vast country, and surviving examples on stone dating from AD 1137 but based on much earlier surveys, show great accuracy, using a grid system. By then the Chinese had also developed the magnetic compass, and in the 13th century western versions of that device allowed European cartography, almost abandoned after the fall of the western Roman Empire, to catch up with Chinese standards of accuracy. By the early years of the 14th century, when Mongol domination of the whole of Asia created favourable conditions for east-west communication, at least one example of the improved European mapping had found its way, via an Islamic version, to China, encouraging Chinese cartographers to create world maps incorporating the new information. The world maps made around the 1320s by Zhu Siben and Li Zemin are now lost, but surviving information about them, including some later versions, indicates that the latter at least showed not only the new European information but also a version of Africa, depicting its southern tip realistically for the first time in history.[3]

The Da Ming Hun Yi Tu, now the oldest survivor of that advanced global cartography (hence the 2002 gift to South Africa), can be seen as a statement of intent for the Hongwu Emperor and his successors- a precursor to the voyages of the great tribute-gathering fleets in the early years of the 15th century. Ingeniously, it replicates the curvature of the Earth by compression of areas furthest away from China (most obviously the extreme horizontal squeeze of Europe), their reduced size making both a geographical and a political statement. A somewhat less impressive political statement was made several centuries later, after the fall of the Ming dynasty, when every label on the map had a slip of paper pasted over it, with the caption translated into the language of the new rulers, Manchu.[3]

[edit] Content of the map

The Earth's curvature affects even the scale of the Chinese section of the map. Horizontally, it works out at about 1:820,000; but vertically it is around 1:1,060,000.[3] The use of colour is particularly effective within China itself, including elegant touches like the ochre tint of the Huang He (Yellow River). Outside China, sub-Saharan Africa is depicted in a good approximation of the correct shape, complete with mountains near the southern tip. The interior of the continent is extraordinary: a river with twin sources (the common depiction in Classical and Islamic maps of the Nile) starts in the south of the continent, but enters the Red Sea, while the Nile, contrary to the information in non-Chinese maps of the era (though in conformity with a reported Arab geographical legend that “farther south from the Sahara Desert is a great lake, far greater than the Caspian Sea”[2]) has its source in a vast inland sea. This is likely to be based on vague information about the several great lakes in the region of modern Tanzania, gained during the course of direct trade between China and south-east Africa.

Detail, stretched sideways, with seas coloured
Detail, stretched sideways, with seas coloured

The European coverage goes only as far as the new portolan mapping, showing the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas. Unlike the African lake, those seas are not shaded with wave symbols, and nor is the nearby Caspian Sea, mapped in Islamic style with two islands, suggesting that the whole area is based on a single Islamic map. Arabia is squeezed horizontally, but recognisable. The prominent peninsula on the west coast of the Chinese landmass is Malaysia, but India is represented merely as a collection of place-names north-west of Arabia. Another manifestation of the same problem, dependence on external sources for geographical information, can be seen to the south of Korea, at the far right side of the map, where Japan, over-sized and misshapen, confusingly meets the much more correctly sized and positioned Taiwan.

[edit] See also

  • Kangnido- a slightly later Korean map based on similar source material

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Qiming Zhou Chinese cartography website Hong Kong Baptist University- accessed 2008-03-16
  2. ^ a b AFP press release Ancient map of Africa poses questions, Nov 2002- via Google Groups, accessed 2008-03-16
  3. ^ a b c Lindy Stiebel Postcolonial Mapping: putting Africa (back) on the map University of KwaZulu-Natal, accessed 2008-03-16

[edit] Further reading

"An Atlas of Ancient Maps in China: The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)" Culture Relics Press (1994) ISBN 7501007705