1940 Shanghai Feisheng City Plan or Map of Guangzhou (Canton), China

Occupation and Starvation in China's Great Southern Metropolis.

This is a rare 1940 city map of Guangzhou (Canton), China, published by the firm Shanghai Feisheng Geological. It is a rare record of Guangzhou's arduous Japanese occupation in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 - 1945) / World War II (1939 - 1945).

A Closer Look

The map covers the municipality of Guangzhou and its immediate suburbs, with streets labeled throughout. Topography, waterways, parks, roads of various types, railways, bridges, government offices (機關), schools, and other public institutions are also recorded. Local government offices (分局) are recorded with red circles and overprint, as is a collection of government buildings around the city's Central Park (中央公園, now People's Park 人民公园). Towards the bottom-left is the island of Shamian, which had been China's outlet to the Western World in the late 18th and early 19th century, and its foreign concessions (租界), which would be abolished in the years after this map's publication. The railways present include the Kowloon-Canton Railway (here as 廣九鐵路), the Guangzhou - Sanshui Railway (廣三鐵路), and the Guangzhou-Hankou Railway (粵漢鐵路, completed 1936), which was linked by ferry crossing across the Yangzi River with the Beijing-Hankou Railway, allowing for a relatively fast connection between northern and southern China. The Haizhu Bridge (海珠橋) is also prominently noted; completed in 1933, it was the first bridge across the Pearl River in Canton, forming a vital link between the city and areas to the south. Damaged in both the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, the bridge had to be rebuilt in 1950 and remains in use today, acquiring historical architecture status in 2013.

Historical Context

Though no obvious reference is made to it here, this map was produced when Guangzhou was under Japanese occupation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 - 1945), part of World War II (1939 - 1945). As a vital economic center and transportation hub, Guangzhou became an early target during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Beginning in late 1937, Japanese forces subjected the city to brutal, sustained aerial bombardments designed to destroy municipal infrastructure and sever Nationalist supply lines along the Canton - Hankou Railway. In October 1938, the Imperial Japanese Army launched an invasion of Guangzhou itself, quickly capturing the city as Chinese forces executed a strategic retreat to avoid encirclement. Knowing of atrocities committed by Japanese troops elsewhere, many thousands of civilians (some of them already refugees from elsewhere in China), probably the majority of Guangzhou's population, fled to Hong Kong or other cities beyond Japanese control. Under Japanese occupation, Guangzhou was transformed into a heavily militarized, tightly controlled garrison base. The fall of the city successfully severed southern China's primary maritime trade routes, isolating local populations and devastating the regional economy as Japanese authorities seized financial assets, shipping facilities, and municipal utilities for the Japanese war effort.

The human toll during the occupation was catastrophic. After Hong Kong was captured in December 1941, some refugees from Guangzhou returned, but the city's population remained a fraction of what it had been in 1938. Japanese naval blockades, aggressive grain requisitions for troops, and the destruction of surrounding agricultural hinterlands triggered a severe food crisis, culminating in the horrific Guangdong Famine of 1943. Much of the city's population that had not already fled now did so out of desperation - those who remained faced forced labor, rampant disease, and extreme deprivation.

Publication History and Census

This map was published in 1940 (Minguo 29) by Shanghai Feisheng Geological (上海蜚聲地學社), which, despite its name, appears to have only published two maps, both of Guangzhou. (The other being '廣州市最新街道交通詳確全圖,' published under the slightly different name 上海蜚聲輿地學社, held by the Tokyo Metropolitan Library and undated in their catalog.) The present map appears to be derived from a 1924 map (最新廣州市馬路全圖) with a similar appearance but a different publisher (書籍行遠安堂), held and digitized by Harvard University's Yenching Library (GEN 3103 0832.1). A 1947 map (大廣州市最新馬路詳圖), published by Hong Kong Great China Publishing House (香港大華出版社), also has a similar title and appearance. However, we have been unable to find any other examples of the present map in institutional collections or on the market.

Condition

Good. Wear and toning along original fold lines. Verso repairs to fold separations. Slight loss at a few fold intersections.