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Category: Asian History

A stick chart of the Marshall Islands.

The Unique Seafaring Charts of the Marshall Islands

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 …

[The road, near Passanaur, Groussie, (i.e., Georgia), Russia, taken between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900].   Detroit Publishing Company Archives, Prints and Photographs Division

A Unique View of the Georgian Military Road

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 …

In 1896 Russia obtained from China an eighty-year concession to construct and operate the Chinese Eastern Railway Company.  The railway became an all-out Russian colonial enterprise in Manchuria, with capital, personnel, and railway management all under the control of the chief proponent of the enterprise, Sergei Witte, Russian Minister of Finance.   This Russian map was published in 1901 by its Ministry of Finance, and shows both the Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Manchurian Railway.  The inset in the lower right corner depicts the Kwantung (Liaodung) Peninsula, and the lines to Port Arthur and Dalian.

A Place for Drying Fish Nets

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 …

This map of Birobidzhan accompanied Professor Boris L. Bruk's 1929 report titled Birobidzhan s geograficheskoi kartoi raiona i 7 fotografiiami, and is the earliest printed map of the region.

Go East, Young Jew, Go East

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 …

A map of the world that was published in 1541.

Taprobana: Sumatra or Ceylon?

Posted by: Cynthia Smith

The Greek explorer and historian Megasthenes wrote that Taprobana was divided by a river and abundant in pearls and gold. Taprobana  was located somewhere in the Indian Ocean and usually shown on historical maps as a large island south of India. There have been many theories about the identity of the island. Some thought Taprobana …

A panoramic view of Afghanistan.

The Great Game and the Boundaries of Afghanistan

Posted by: Cynthia Smith

Letts’s bird’s eye view of the approaches to India by W.H. Payne was published in London during the early 1900s. Letts, Son & Co. sold stationary, maps and diaries, among them is this striking panoramic view that depicts Russian territory in the north marked with a red dotted line along the Amu Darya River. Mountain ranges, the …