Stone Maps

Ancient Chinese Maps



Library of Congress, US, has the largest collection of Asian maps (outside Asia).

I am collecting some mapping history material and use this post as pool of links. I'll clean up eventually...

Geography and maps reading room, Library of Congress



A rubbing taken from a 4,000-year-old stone tablet in Sian, the ancient capital of China, represents one of the oldest extant maps. Made in 1935 by Prof. W. B. Pettus of the College of Chinese Studies at Peking and given to the Library by George B. Cressey, Professor of Geography, Syracuse University, the map was apparently prepared for pedagogical purposes. It delineates the provinces of China which paid tribute to Emperor Yu, the founder in 2205 b.c. of the first legendary dynasty. (Vault Map Collection) OBS: Map is dated 1136.



Detail of manuscript Chinese map, "Ten-Thousand-Mile Map of Maritime Defenses," drawn during the Qing Dynasty, ca. 1705. This map, which is one of eleven maps mounted in an accordion-folded album fifty-one feet in length, shows military defenses along the Chinese coast from Hainan Island to the Shandong Peninsula. (Arthur W. Hummel Collection)

Sources of information:


Mapping the World, Ralph E. Ehrenberg, National Geographic

Timeline: Tibet

About Tibet

Extract from Hopkirk

Collection of old Chinese maps: Ryhiner

Cartographer d'Anville:



Moon crater d'Anville: Anville_(crater)