1895 Japanese Map of Taiwan

An extremely scarce and important map of Taiwan or Formosa drawn shortly after the island was sized by Japanese forces at the beginning of the First Sino-Japanese War (August 1, 1894 – April 17, 1895). Formosa, here malformed despite the fact that it claims to be from an actual survey, was of interested to the Japanese well before the First Sino-Japanese War and the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The cartographer has inexplicably exaggerated Tainan and Hsinchu harbors. Several variants on this map were issued near the end of the war to illustrate new Japanese territories. A proper survey followed and a corrected map was subsequently issued later in the same year – making these almost instantly obsolete. As such they are extremely rare today with this being only the third such map we've encountered. The verso contains a map of the Yellow Sea including Korea and Shandong Provence.