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Monumental 1769 Chinese Manuscript Map of Ming China and Korea

Placed with a prestigious New England private collection, this extraordinary and previously unknown 1769 Chinese-language manuscript map is among the most significant recent discoveries in East Asian cartography. Monumental in scale and unique in every respect, it is believed to preserve official Ming Dynasty geographic knowledge transmitted to Tokugawa Japan by descendants of Chinese scholars who fled the Qing conquest.

Executed in manuscript, the map presents a detailed vision of Ming China, Korea, and Southeast Asia, incorporating extensive political, topographical, and historical information. Richly annotated in elegant Chinese calligraphy, it bears the politically charged title Great Ming Unification Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces (大明一統二京十三省図), a title whose use was forbidden under the Qing Dynasty. Numerous revisions, paste-down corrections, and textual additions suggest that this was an actively used working manuscript rather than a decorative production. The highlighted Ningbo–Nagasaki trade route and numerous internal textual references strongly support its association with the Ming loyalist communities established in Japan following the fall of the Ming Dynasty in 1644.

As a unique manuscript with no known counterpart, the map fundamentally expands our understanding of Chinese cartographic traditions preserved outside Qing China. It preserves geographic concepts derived from lost or fragmentary Ming sources while documenting China's historical worldview, provincial organization, foreign relations, and maritime sphere of influence. References to kingdoms including Siam, Cambodia, Java, Sumatra, Ceylon, and the legendary maritime empire of Srivijaya further underscore its remarkable historical breadth and scholarly importance.

The placement of this remarkable manuscript into a prestigious New England private collection ensures the preservation of an extraordinary survivor of the Ming intellectual tradition. Geographicus is honored to have facilitated the acquisition of a work that stands not only as an exceptional rarity but as an important contribution to the study of Chinese history, East Asian cartography, and the cultural legacy of the Ming diaspora.