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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
Posted by: Cynthia Smith
The Geography and Map Division holds thousands of vintage and antique nautical charts. Among the most compelling navigational charts in our holdings are the traditional stick charts of the Marshall Islands. The first time that I saw them, displayed in shadow boxes, I thought they looked like striking works of modern art. My curiosity led …
Posted in: Asian History, Exploration, Oceania
Posted by: Mike Klein
A few years ago a colleague of mine in the map division wrote a blog about maps of North Korea’s enigmatic capital of Pyongang. One of the maps, published by the Japanese Tourist Bureau in the 1920s, extols the city, renamed by the Japanese as Heijo, as a model of modernization and economic prosperity. At …
Posted in: 20th century cartography, Asian History, Military History
![[The road, near Passanaur, Groussie, (i.e., Georgia), Russia, taken between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900]. Detroit Publishing Company Archives, Prints and Photographs Division](https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/files/2021/02/master-pnp-ppmsc-03800-03805u.jpg)
Posted by: Mike Klein
Few journeys offer the prospect of so pleasant a destination or more luxurious accommodations than the Stairway to Heaven. Those of us not lucky enough to secure a ticket on that ride will have to settle for more mundane adventures, perhaps something with less delicate transportation facilities and sparser lodgings. With meagre options at hand …
Posted in: Asian History, European History
Posted by: Mike Klein
By the 1890s the eyes of the western imperial powers were turning eastwards, especially towards Manchuria. Why had Manchuria become such a hot property? As any real estate agent will say, it’s “location, location, and location.” For Russia, its imperial gaze followed the ambitions of Tsar Nicholas II and Finance Minister Sergei Witte, who wanted …
Posted in: Asian History
Posted by: Mike Klein
(The title of this post is a satirical improvisation on a quote attributed to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, when expressing his views towards the westward expansion of the United States.) Somewhere between China’s Heilongjiang Province (Manchuria) and the Russian Far East, nestled in a southern crook of Siberia’s Amur River, lies …
Posted in: Asian History