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Posted by: Amelia Raines
This second post in the Fabricating the World series explores mapmaking with woodblock printing.
Posted in: 15th century cartography, 16th century cartography, 18th century cartography, 19th century cartography, Asian History, European History, Series: Fabricating the World
Posted by: Abraham Parrish
An insight into early 18th century trade in the East-Indies focusing on the English East Indies Company and the 1721-1723 trade voyage of the ship Townsend revealed through the maps of British cartographer Herman Moll.
Posted in: 18th century cartography, Asian History, City Histories, European History, Middle East and North African History
Posted by: Amelia Raines
This post explores a unique Thai cloth map, acquired by the Geography and Map Division in 2023.
Posted in: 18th century cartography, 19th century cartography, Asian History, Borders, Manuscripts
Posted by: Amelia Raines
The story of the naming of America has been told before – not surprisingly considering the object central to the story, Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, is one of the most important treasures in the Geography and Map Division. The name was bestowed by the mapmaker to show his support for Amerigo Vespucci’s argument that …
Posted in: 15th century cartography, 16th century cartography, 17th century cartography, 18th century cartography, 19th century cartography, African History, American History, Asian History, European History, Exploration, Middle East and North African History, Oceania
Posted by: Cynthia Smith
Featured below is a map known as the “Map with Ship.” The map was donated to the Library of Congress in 1943 by a retired merchant and author named Marcian F. Rossi. Marcian Rossi was born in Italy in 1870. He moved to the United States during the 1880s. The Rossi family inherited a collection …
Posted in: Asian History, European History, Exploration
Posted by: Amelia Raines
The dramatic eruption of Krakatoa (or Krakatau in Indonesian) in 1883 was, as our sister blog Headlines and Heroes describes it, “one of the first global catastrophes.” By its very destruction, this small Indonesian island was thrust onto the world stage, its name becoming almost shorthand for volcanic disaster. Geologist Rogier Verbeek, who had briefly …
Posted in: 19th century cartography, Asian History, Oceania, Physical Geography
Posted by: Cynthia Smith
Edo (present day Tokyo) served as the seat of the Tokugawa Shogunate from 1603 to 1867. During the Tokugawa period, the Tokaido Highroad was the most important route in Japan. The Tokaido road stretched over 300 miles from Edo to the capital city of Kyoto. A cartographer named Ochikochi Doin surveyed the route in 1651. …
Posted in: 17th century cartography, Asian History, Biography, City Histories, Manuscripts
Posted by: Amelia Raines
Take a look at this monsoon chart, paying special attention to the western Indian Ocean between the east coast of Africa and the west coast of India, and you might notice a pattern: The left chart depicts the prevailing winds in the Indian Ocean in February; the right, in August. In winter, a sea of …
Posted in: 16th century cartography, 17th century cartography, 19th century cartography, African History, Asian History, Exploration
Posted by: Carissa Pastuch
German archeologist and historian Konrad Miller’s 1928 recreation of Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Idrisi’s (also al-Sharif al-Idrisi; circa 1100–66) Tabula Rogeriana, titled Weltkarte des Idrisi vom Jahr, Charta Rogeriana, has been explored in previous blog posts by both my colleague and section head. In this post, I highlight the oldest known copy of al-Idrisi’s original geographical work …
Posted in: Asian History, European History