Imperial Cartography Institute (帝國地圖學館)
Imperial Cartography Institute (帝國地圖學館; fl. c. 1908 - 1943) was a map publisher that was most active at the height of Japanese imperial expansion in early Showa era. The organization published a series of maps of Manchukuo, China, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, reflecting the major areas of focus for Japanese imperialism at the time. Some of their maps took an even wider scope, such as a 1940 map of the Muslim world (回教圏要圖); the Japanese hoped to align with Muslims in China and Central Asia as a means of undermining both of their great rivals, the Republic of China and the Soviet Union. The group also maintained a library relating to the cultures, languages, and geography of Asia, and put out a related periodical titled the Imperial Library Gazette (帝國圖書館館報). It appears that the organization primarily focused on collecting information and publishing this periodical in its early years, and only began producing its own maps in the late 1930s.
Imperial Cartography Institute is also known as: 帝國地圖學館
Seeds of Japan's Stalemate in China.
東亞現勢大地圖 / [Large Map of Current Situation in East Asia].
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This is a 1938 large-format map of East Asia prepared by the Imperial Cartography Institute (Teikoku Chizu Gakkan) and published as a supplement to the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun. Produced in the midst of the Second Sino-Japanese War (part of WWII), it presents Japanese military advances in China at a time when the war was ostensibly going very much in Japan's favor, though early signs of later problems were already becoming apparent. (more details)