European maps would be much much more accurate, not sure about other societies but this was long after most of the rest of the world has been discovered by Europeans.
I would highlight that this was not a map used for navigation, but rather propaganda purposes "we are bigger therefore more important than the others".
As others have said, this map is art, not for navigating. It would be likened to aliens in the far away future after we're extinct finding a map of the world from a children's book with animals and shit and thinking we're shitty cartographers.
Maps made by seafarers tended to be fairly accurate in terms of where land masses are in relation to each other and less accurate about all other aspects. Modern maps meant for navigation still do that to some degree. The Mercator projection makes Antarctica seem like it's the size of Africa but it's the most iconic projection because it preserves the angles between points on the map, so it was perfect for sailors.
Probably because Blue is a man-made dye and was very costly during those days. That's one of the reasons why you hardly see blue flags or army uniforms from the middle ages.
This map is probably inspired by the world maps produced by the jesuits in China since the 17th century. Jesuits cartographers had the clever idea to put China on the center or near-center of the map, so that their world map were well received. While local Chinese cartographers would perhaps avoid inaccuracies regarding Chinese territories, there would be less incentives for Japan, which is not always pictured very well in 17th and 18th European maps.
Jesuits were crawling all over the Ming and later Qing Dynasty courts serving as foreign ambassadors, scientists, and advisers to the Emperors about all things outside of China.
What is the source of this map? Am interested in the style of this map which I find the colors, shading and gradients styles interesting for that era. 1799 would be during the Qianlong era.
I like how the Netherlands is absolutely massive on this map. Perhaps the European part of the map could be titled A Chinese Map of Europe According to the Dutch lol.
This can't have been their official map. With all the trade of goods and knowledge along the silk road during that time, I don't believe their brightest cartographers actually thought the world looked like this. This looks like it might have been made by some grade school teacher from that era, being used today as anti-Chinese propaganda, but not what was used by the emperor to make international decisions. Don't believe everything on the internet, people.
The title should be ‘This is one Chinese artist’s pretty shitty interpretation of the world’. No way anybody in China would have used this in any meaningful sense.
Whatever they got from foreigners, even if super crude, is better than their own land depiction. This can't possibly the best thing they had by 1799, or is it?
Im really concerned about wording with these types of things, its a map in Chinese but what do you mean by according to China? Chinese people are not some homogenous mass that any single representation suddenly represents all chinese people. People don’t treat most other groups like this. Is this the official Qing Dynasty Map used by the Qing government? Is is some random Chinese person? Wtf is China? A guy named China? If i show any map from this period in English is it the map According to England?
Even besides the inaccuracy, this seems Ike a really useless map. it looks more like a decoration piece with the pattern of a world map than a real tool for navigation. I can’t imagine that this is the best they had for the rest of the world.
The china hate is strong in this thread. If you do a reverse image search of this, you can see it’s meant to be an eastern hemisphere map, so that’s why there’s no America. Keep in mind that Chinese scientists knew the world was round going back very far, and they discovered America a long time before this map was made.
That still dosent change the fact that this map is comedicly shit and that the Chinese were to full of themselves to take intrest in the world around them wich was being dominated bye the European.
Can anyone tell me if the Sikh empire is there (as it existed at this time but I'm not sure if it was even bordering China yet like it later would) and what they called it?
This may be a map from 1799 but similar world maps used in China go back to the 5th and 6th century. There are even some that say archaeological evidence exists that suggests the Chinese traded all along South America before the Inca Empire fell. This is basically a navigational trade map. It's not ment to be accurate world map.
Those who are questioning why this map look so inaccurate for a 1700s map is because this map isn’t even an official map. Probably drawn by some random teacher or traveler. There are much more detailed and accurate maps out there dating way far back. I’m just assuming OP either purposely made this misleading or that they’re just not educated enough to think one of the worlds oldest and most inventive country does not know how to make maps.
This isn't even the offical map used by the government, this is like getting some random map in history and saying it was offical. It's not and they knew the America's existed at this time.
What's the primary source for Chinese mapmakers?--they weren't exactly great explorers. Did they just copy western maps, like they copy everything else today?
Where have you read that they’re not good explorers? Considering how they dominated trade and expanded reach, historians state they’re quite good at exploring.
Thread is a testament to how white people are sponges to propaganda despite circlejerking themselves as free thinkers. No wonder 90% of anti-vaxxers are white. Need to feed ego outweighs actual facts. Good reference for demonstrating implicit/subconscious maintenance of white supremacy.
Dude it’s a hotel in China. It’s purpose is to display the time. Of course they put China in the center. It’s not purely a map, it’s just a cool looking clock.
If you're referring to the large blob on the lower right, I think that's supposed to donate Australia. There appears to be another landmass jutting up under Africa. It's possible that they still followed old European tales of
Not really. The Mercator projection is designed for navigation and preserves accurate cardinal directions at the expense of proportional area because that’s what’s important for charting courses. It’s a very useful map projection and the inflation of polar extremes is an inevitable consequence not a deliberate choice. Mercator didn’t just decide to make a map where Greenland was huge for shits and giggles.
Is this fake maybe? I know that China at the time was very far behind Europe, but this map is comically awful for 1799. Did they seriously not have any European maps made in the last century hanging around when they decided to make this one?
Lol how the hell did they manage to not know where India was or how huge it is but know relatively where Britain was? Prob because Europeans visited there and told them
China has been trading with the Philippines even before 1500 (pre Spanish colonization of Philippines). I doubt this map is what Chinese seafarers used.
The massive size of China might not just be the map maker’s daily in this map, but instead Chinese propaganda. The Qing emperors were said to rule “everything under heaven” and during the Opium wars called the British “rebels”, because to them everyone was destined to live under the rule of the Emperor.
So backwards compared to contemporary European made maps of which had pretty much the entire planet with the only distortion being the poles where the ice mad things ambiguous. Not good for navigation not even remotely accurate this is primitive garbage and shows it's inferiority. It looks like a child saw a world map and tried to copy it.
What do maps from other cartographers (e.g. Indian, European,...) of that time look like`? The comparison would be interesting.
Here's a British Mathematician, Samuel Dunn's, Map of the world from five years earlier in 1794
Yea I totally wanna see an old map from India, because they are always extremely shrinked down on both European maps and this Chinese one.
This is pre 1500s detail for European maps.
I found this:
European maps would be much much more accurate, not sure about other societies but this was long after most of the rest of the world has been discovered by Europeans.
I would highlight that this was not a map used for navigation, but rather propaganda purposes "we are bigger therefore more important than the others".
Check out the world map of Piri Reis from 1515 or something.
I find this kind of post title misleading and really encourages implicit bias. Edit: is this their best map at the time? Or just one map?
An
Love the way Ireland is just a circular landmass.
oileán liathróid
The Chinese plotted Northern Ireland and forgot the rest of the country
Australia looks like they forgot to draw it until the last minute and made it up.
I thought wow that is pretty accurate and then I looked at the date
They didn't even get Japan right
As others have said, this map is art, not for navigating. It would be likened to aliens in the far away future after we're extinct finding a map of the world from a children's book with animals and shit and thinking we're shitty cartographers.
When you order the cheap off-brand world map on Amazon
The change from the year 1800 to 2000 is insane. Can you imagine being born in like 1830 and living until 1950?
Whats wrong with the date?
Maps made by seafarers tended to be fairly accurate in terms of where land masses are in relation to each other and less accurate about all other aspects. Modern maps meant for navigation still do that to some degree. The Mercator projection makes Antarctica seem like it's the size of Africa but it's the most iconic projection because it preserves the angles between points on the map, so it was perfect for sailors.
It’s not a legit map from the 1800’s because the characters on there are in simplified Chinese, which wasn’t standardized until 1956.
The green colour for the seas is quite pleasing.
Omg, I kept staring at the green, trying to make sense of it as land..
Probably because Blue is a man-made dye and was very costly during those days. That's one of the reasons why you hardly see blue flags or army uniforms from the middle ages.
Some langusges give green and blue the same name. Hence probably why it’s so here
What was this sort of map used fr，navigation，education?
Art. This isn't a scientific instrument like we think of maps today.
[удалено]
It shows that the 9 dash line is bullshit.
[удалено]
This map is probably inspired by the world maps produced by the jesuits in China since the 17th century. Jesuits cartographers had the clever idea to put China on the center or near-center of the map, so that their world map were well received. While local Chinese cartographers would perhaps avoid inaccuracies regarding Chinese territories, there would be less incentives for Japan, which is not always pictured very well in 17th and 18th European maps.
[удалено]
Surely it is detailed but in an exploded view in the same way the other areas around china are enlarged
[удалено]
It's there written as “本日” and you will read from right to left.
"Sakoku" i guess
And get SE Asia in entirely the wrong place. It should be under china not to the west.
I think because Japan was very isolationist at the time
Most likely referenced maps from Europe which would have been much easier for them to get
Jesuits were crawling all over the Ming and later Qing Dynasty courts serving as foreign ambassadors, scientists, and advisers to the Emperors about all things outside of China.
What is the source of this map? Am interested in the style of this map which I find the colors, shading and gradients styles interesting for that era. 1799 would be during the Qianlong era.
I like this pancake version of Africa.
I like how the Netherlands is absolutely massive on this map. Perhaps the European part of the map could be titled A Chinese Map of Europe According to the Dutch lol.
I think that big hump is denmark and the little one below it is the Netherlands
What do you mean? That’s completely historically accurate.
God made earth big, Chinese made Dutch big
In keeping with tradition, New Zealand still does not exist
MapsWithoutNZ
[удалено]
„is not it“ sounds so weird in my head when it is the same as „isn‘t it“
love how it predicts sweden-norway
Is India non existant?
I think it's the tiny blob NW of the big Indochina.
What is that poop north of Madagascar?
Well that's the great poop island of course. You've never heard of it ?
That’s what the poop emoji looked like in 1799.
Stylised hurricane?
This can't have been their official map. With all the trade of goods and knowledge along the silk road during that time, I don't believe their brightest cartographers actually thought the world looked like this. This looks like it might have been made by some grade school teacher from that era, being used today as anti-Chinese propaganda, but not what was used by the emperor to make international decisions. Don't believe everything on the internet, people.
this an actual official map
The title should be ‘This is one Chinese artist’s pretty shitty interpretation of the world’. No way anybody in China would have used this in any meaningful sense.
Wish somebody could translate it
I can’t help noticing that China isn’t actually in the middle in this map…
Yeah India is for quite obvious reasons.
Whatever they got from foreigners, even if super crude, is better than their own land depiction. This can't possibly the best thing they had by 1799, or is it?
The purpose of maps has not always been geographical accuracy.
It's not. An actual map from that time was linked in another comment. And it's a detailed and thorough as you might imagine for thr late 1700s.
For real, i can't even find 湖北 despite knowing exactly where it is. Wish there was a better photo but even so, it seems very sparse.
yep they constantly traded with the British they even had British books? I doubt this is real.
(Stolen from another comment by
[удалено]
Im really concerned about wording with these types of things, its a map in Chinese but what do you mean by according to China? Chinese people are not some homogenous mass that any single representation suddenly represents all chinese people. People don’t treat most other groups like this. Is this the official Qing Dynasty Map used by the Qing government? Is is some random Chinese person? Wtf is China? A guy named China? If i show any map from this period in English is it the map According to England?
this an actual official map
These mfkers playing civ with all these hexagon shapes
what's the red spots above Madagascar?
How tf did they manage to get their immediate neighbors, India and Japan so wrong? But not Europe and Africa
India and Japan were difficult to get to back then. Don’t forget the Tibetan plateau
Lmao, the Philippine islands are so badly drawn here too. Fucking hilarious.
Even besides the inaccuracy, this seems Ike a really useless map. it looks more like a decoration piece with the pattern of a world map than a real tool for navigation. I can’t imagine that this is the best they had for the rest of the world.
That’s probably exactly what it is in fairness. Nobody is sailing or studying with this.
Nice no murica for a change
The china hate is strong in this thread. If you do a reverse image search of this, you can see it’s meant to be an eastern hemisphere map, so that’s why there’s no America. Keep in mind that Chinese scientists knew the world was round going back very far, and they discovered America a long time before this map was made.
[удалено]
That still dosent change the fact that this map is comedicly shit and that the Chinese were to full of themselves to take intrest in the world around them wich was being dominated bye the European.
Even they left New Zealand off the map
MapsWithoutNZ
Australia sort of looks like a second Europe.
lol the iberian peninsula
Maps without America
It looks like one of those mobile games
Australia got done dirty.
Close enough
A lot of rivers in Africa that have been long dry
Can anyone tell me if the Sikh empire is there (as it existed at this time but I'm not sure if it was even bordering China yet like it later would) and what they called it?
Weird that Italy looks more accurate than India
mapswithoutnewzealand
lmao what is europe doing in australia?
doing your dad
They also have a land mass west of Australia... X-Files theme song
I'm a fan of how much emphasis got placed on The Gambia in this map
Shoutout to Antarctica
This may be a map from 1799 but similar world maps used in China go back to the 5th and 6th century. There are even some that say archaeological evidence exists that suggests the Chinese traded all along South America before the Inca Empire fell. This is basically a navigational trade map. It's not ment to be accurate world map.
Pretty good!
Not bad for 1779
See? Flat. Bingo
mapswithoutNewZeland
Those who are questioning why this map look so inaccurate for a 1700s map is because this map isn’t even an official map. Probably drawn by some random teacher or traveler. There are much more detailed and accurate maps out there dating way far back. I’m just assuming OP either purposely made this misleading or that they’re just not educated enough to think one of the worlds oldest and most inventive country does not know how to make maps.
if it was a map for domestic use, there lands would be central to the map.
That would leave half the map ocean
If this was 1199, I would be impressed.
This isn't even the offical map used by the government, this is like getting some random map in history and saying it was offical. It's not and they knew the America's existed at this time.
Whats that big island north of britain supoosed to be? Thule?
What's the primary source for Chinese mapmakers?--they weren't exactly great explorers. Did they just copy western maps, like they copy everything else today?
Where have you read that they’re not good explorers? Considering how they dominated trade and expanded reach, historians state they’re quite good at exploring.
Wow this is bad by 18th century standards.
https://qingmaps.org/maps/qianlong-1766
Thread is a testament to how white people are sponges to propaganda despite circlejerking themselves as free thinkers. No wonder 90% of anti-vaxxers are white. Need to feed ego outweighs actual facts. Good reference for demonstrating implicit/subconscious maintenance of white supremacy.
Where are the Americas? I mean this was made the year George Washington died
Lol and why is Japan so small? Japan and India are two huge neighboring ancient civilizations that are basically missing
Still better than nowadays
That's just an accurate world map with a map of China overlayed on it?
Dude it’s a hotel in China. It’s purpose is to display the time. Of course they put China in the center. It’s not purely a map, it’s just a cool looking clock.
Most interesting thing they found Antartica at that time.
If you're referring to the large blob on the lower right, I think that's supposed to donate Australia. There appears to be another landmass jutting up under Africa. It's possible that they still followed old European tales of
Strange that they didn't place themselves in the epicenter of the map
Do China really had access to the Caspian Sea at that time?
This is like the mercator projection of china.
Not really. The Mercator projection is designed for navigation and preserves accurate cardinal directions at the expense of proportional area because that’s what’s important for charting courses. It’s a very useful map projection and the inflation of polar extremes is an inevitable consequence not a deliberate choice. Mercator didn’t just decide to make a map where Greenland was huge for shits and giggles.
I would be so interested in a transliteration of this map! Man, do I wish I could read hànzì!
Awesome map as well as culture. Don’t take today’s China as a reference as the culture is extremely rich.
Where are the Americas? By 1779 it should be there, didnt it?
Is this fake maybe? I know that China at the time was very far behind Europe, but this map is comically awful for 1799. Did they seriously not have any European maps made in the last century hanging around when they decided to make this one?
check yourself
Lol how the hell did they manage to not know where India was or how huge it is but know relatively where Britain was? Prob because Europeans visited there and told them
Oh, look. Tibet was part of China back in 1799 already…
Lol China
China has been trading with the Philippines even before 1500 (pre Spanish colonization of Philippines). I doubt this map is what Chinese seafarers used.
This is the kind of post I had hoped for when I joined this subreddit. Thanks for sharing OP.
First I was like Not bad, then saw the date lol.
The massive size of China might not just be the map maker’s daily in this map, but instead Chinese propaganda. The Qing emperors were said to rule “everything under heaven” and during the Opium wars called the British “rebels”, because to them everyone was destined to live under the rule of the Emperor.
Are The Americas in another map or what?
I’m surprised how accurate it is.
For reference, here is a
here is the actual offcial map from Qing emperor
Where was this crappy map made, in China?
To be fair, during this era the Chinese were not exactly known for being an advanced society.
Despite the Chinese importing silver from the Americas for over 200 years at this point, they apparently had no clue what it actually looked like.
So backwards compared to contemporary European made maps of which had pretty much the entire planet with the only distortion being the poles where the ice mad things ambiguous. Not good for navigation not even remotely accurate this is primitive garbage and shows it's inferiority. It looks like a child saw a world map and tried to copy it.
/s ?
People here getting offended by a map lol calm down we all know China is shit already
of course they portray thenself as huge
Because... They are huge...? 3rd largest country in the modern world by area has to count for something.
I hate myself
They could've used a compass to do the circle, looks like a kid has drawn it.
well no wonder they got steamrolled soon after
Did they not know about the Americas at that point or is this just a half-globe map?
And China made this map according to the Europeans
The Chinese really thought Korea was part of them from back in the days. What the fuck. I am not surprised as a Korean.
At first I was astonished ancient China had a world map so good, and then I looked at the date, I’m so embarrassed on chinas behalf.
https://qingmaps.org/maps/qianlong-1766
Which lake is next to Caspian Sea? Does it The Lake Aral?
My best guess is it's the lake that is located north of Almaty. I think it's that because China borders it.
The one on the left says Black Sea, Caspian Sea on the right
Fair enough
Fairly accurate looking Great Britain, but no idea what Australia looks like
how is africa the most accurate??
Sri lanka is missing, which is a surprise given how much detail they had on so many smaller further islands.
Did they know about Antarctica
Any translations available?
A for effort.
Apparently the red sea doesn't exist
What's that little nub on the westernmost part of Asia?
where is india though?
Pretty accurate
Pacific Ocean was in its difficult years. Notice the acne.
Where the f is New Zealand?
Why does Australia look like Europe
Looks like a repost. I've seen this image 1 time.
Interesting how much bigger Southeast Asia is compared to India. Prob just we’re much more familiar with it.
phooey
Is the green in this the ocean? And white is land? I’m guessing that’s why where China should be it’s golden coloured instead?
Borneo, Sulawesi, and the Phillipines are just a mess lol
They did I cut corners
Cartographers, especially back in the day ones, are fucking magicians.
At least it was round
Hopefully no one drowned trying to use this map. Dude put grass where there is water.
That's some savage Japan bashing.
Damn the Pacific island nations really had a lot more lang before global warming
It stil is strange or huge coincidence that alaska wasn't discoverd by the chinese scholars and explorers.