Jean Baptiste d'Anville was Royal Geographer of France, which means one of the most influential cartographers of the country that had recently supplanted the Netherlands to become the European leader in cartography. He collaborated with the Jesuit missionary Du Halde (1674-1743), who transmitted him the results of the great Jesuit Survey of 1708-1717 undertaken under the Kangxi (1654-1722) emperor’s auspices, using the same triangulation method the Cassini family was applying in France to achieve the first truly modern map of any nation state. The Qing survey was at the time the largest cartographic enterprise ever accomplished using exact measurements.
The maps from the Jesuit survey were first printed in China from woodblocks in Atlas form and presented to the Kangxi emperor in 1718. The Atlas comprised 28 separate detailed maps of the Chinese provinces, different parts of Tartary and Tibet, and Korea. Soon after that, the Jesuits sent them to France and entrusted them to father Du Halde. Du Halde agreed in 1728 that d’Anville would reduce and redraw the maps and produce on their basis four entirely new general maps, to be included in Du Halde’s massive four volume Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, enrichie des cartes générales et particulieres de ces pays (Paris, le Mercier, 1735) as foldable maps. The volumes were a huge success; just one year later they got translated into English under the title The General History of China: containing a geographical, historical, chronological, political and physical description of the empire of China, Chinese-Tartary, Corea, and Thibet (in our holdings http://ustlib.ust.hk/record=b456106) and republished in French in The Hague by Scheurleer in a pirated edition. Scheurleer also published all d’Anville’s maps in a separate pirated volume in 1737, under the title Nouvel Atlas de la Chine (New Atlas of China) (in our holdings https://lbezone.hkust.edu.hk/bib/b640023).
The general map shows what European geographers called “China proper”, subdivided (with hand colored borders) into its traditional 13 provinces. Only a part of Southern Manchuria (Liaodong) and a part of Qinghai (the Qaidam basin 柴達木盆地 with Toson Nor and Alac Nor) are added within the borders.
A few lines of text at the top center indicate that the areas north of the border are inhabited by Mongol tribes, dependent from China, the most important tribes being grouped into administrative/military divisions called ‘banners’ (indicated by images of flags on the map).
A simple decorative cartouche on the lower left, adorned with exotic birds and the figurine of a robed official, contains a legend explaining the symbols used to designate cities of different magnitudes, rivers, mountains and mountain passages, as well a notes on the monosyllabic nature of place names and about the proper pronunciation on –ng endings.
Robed official
- Mario Cams, "The China Maps of Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville: Origins and Supporting Networks", Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography, Volume 66, Issue 1, 2014, pages 51-69
- Catherine Delano-Smith `Signs on printed topographical maps c. 1470 to c. 1640’, in David Woodward, ed., History of Cartography, Volume 3, Cartography in the European Renaissance, (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007): 528–590
- Massimo Quaini, Michele Castelnovi, Visioni del Celeste Impero. L’immagine della Cina nella cartografia occidentale, Genova, Il Portolano, 2007, 154-155
- Semans Cheryl Ann, Mapping the unknown: Jesuit cartography in China: 1583-1773, Berkeley PhD dissertation, 1987: 173-179