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1942 or Showa 17 Japanese Land Survey Map of Tasmania, Australia

Tasmania-japanese-1942
$100.00
Tasmania, Australia. - Main View
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1942 or Showa 17 Japanese Land Survey Map of Tasmania, Australia

Tasmania-japanese-1942


Title


Tasmania, Australia.
  1942 (dated)     30 x 41 in (76.2 x 104.14 cm)     1 : 2000000

Description


This is a scarce 1942 or Showa 17 Japanese map or chart of Tasmania and Victoria, Australia by the Imperial Japan Government Land Survey Division. The map covers all of Tasmania or Van Diemen's Land as well as Victoria and parts of New South Wales and South Australia. This World War II era map is highly detailed and notes rives, towns, shipping lines, and a host of other topographical features. While Allied World War II maps of this region are fairly common it is extremely rare to come across their Japanese counterparts. All text is in Japanese. This map was issued by the Imperial Japanese Government Land Survey Division in 1942.

Cartographer


Japanese cartography appears as early as the 1600s. Japanese maps are known for their exceptional beauty and high quality of workmanship. Early Japanese cartography has its own very distinctive projection and layout system. Japanese maps made prior to the appearance of Commodore Perry and the opening of Japan in the mid to late 1850s often have no firm directional orientation, incorporate views into the map proper, and tend to be hand colored woodblock prints. This era, from the 1600s to the c. 1855, which roughly coincides with the Tokugawa or Edo Period (1603-1886), some consider the Golden Age of Japanese Cartography. Most maps from this period, which followed isolationist ideology, predictably focus on Japan. The greatest cartographer of the period, whose work redefined all subsequent cartography, was Ino Tadataka (1745 -1818). Ino's maps of Japan were so detailed that, when the European cartographers arrived they had no need, even with their far more sophisticated survey equipment, to remap the region. Later Japanese maps, produced in the late Edo and throughout the Meiji period, draw heavily upon western maps as models in both their content and overall cartographic style. While many of these later maps maintain elements of traditional Japanese cartography such as the use of rice paper, woodblock printing, and delicate hand color, they also incorporate western directional orientation, projection systems, and structural norms. Even so, Japan's isolationist policy kept most western maps from reaching Japan so even 19th century maps appear extremely out of date. The early Japanese maps copy the great 1602 Chinese world map of the friar Matto Ricci. After Shiba Kokan's 1792 map, most Japanese cartographers used Covens and Mortier's 1730 copy of Jaillot's 1689 double hemisphere work as their base world-view. In 1862 Seiyo Sato based a new world map on Dutch sources dating to 1857, thus introducing the Mercator projection to Japan. By the late Meiji Era, western maps became far more common in Asia and Japanese maps began to follow modern conventions. Learn More...

Condition


Very good. Minor wear along original fold lines. Minor overall toning.