1800 Japanese Manuscript Wall Map of Japan

This is a very large c. 1800 Japanese-language manuscript map of Japan, produced by an unknown maker.

A Closer Look

This stunning work, spanning nearly 80 inches across, provides a detailed map of Japan in the late Edo period. Provinces are outlined with thick black lines, with their names written in large rectangles and the names of their constituent domains and cities written in smaller rectangles and circles. Red lines denote roads and highways, including the Tokaido linking Kyoto (京) with Edo (江戶), while maritime lines are similarly traced with dotted lines. Additional features like towns, mountains, lakes, rivers, islands, temples, shrines, and stations of the Tokaido and other highways, as well as distances between such points, are also noted. Many, though not all, mountains are illustrated, including Mt. Fuji (富士山). Multiple compasses contain both cardinal directions and the points of the traditional East Asian compass based on feng shui principles.

The Korean city of Busan (釜山), a key site of cultural and commercial interaction, appears at the top-left, as well as Seongsan Ilchulbong (日出山), most likely referring to a volcanic peak at the eastern end of Jeju Island, which, if so, would be greatly exaggerated in size, presumably due to its importance as a navigational landmark. The island of Hokkaido barely makes an appearance, aside from Matsumae (松前) at the top-right, unsurprising as Matsumae Castle was a frontier outpost meant to be the passageway for any travel between Japan and Hokkaido. At the bottom, towards the right, a suggestive reference is made to the distant Ogasawara or Bonin Islands (小笠原島).

Publication History and Census

This manuscript work contains no maker's signature or seal and few clues as to its production or date. It is undoubtedly from the Edo period (1600 - 1868) and most likely from the early 19th century. Some of the administrative divisions indicated, such as Ichinomiya (一ノ宮) in Kazusa Province (上総), suggest the late Edo period, c. 1830-50. However, the map excludes nearly all of Hokkaido and the entirety of the Chishima Islands (Kurils), Karafuto (Sakhalin), the Ryukyus, latitude, longitude, and other features that increasingly appeared on maps of Japan in the early 19th century. Late 18th-century maps, such as those by master cartographers Hayashi Shihei (1738 - 1793) and Nagakubo Sekisui (1717 - 1801), were often later reprinted or reproduced in multiple editions in the early-mid 19th century, with updates and changes made in the process. It is, therefore, possible that the present map is such: a later recasting of an earlier 18th-century map; such updates as the addition of new domains like Ichinomiya were especially common with manuscript maps. In terms of the unusually large size of the map, the maker drew the map in portions on separate sheets that were then pasted together, evidenced by gaps, overlaps, and misalignments where some sheets meet.

In any event, the only identifying information present is the purple stamp at the top-right, which indicates provenance, being the seal of the Educational Committee of Kami District (加美郡教育會) in Miyagi Prefecture near Sendai. The date on the bottom portion of the seal strongly suggests that the map was cataloged in the first year of the reign of the Taisho Emperor, 1912.