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in Archives Kaei 6 (1853) Place of creation Scope and content
1853 (Kaei 6) Japanese world map by Suido Nakajima. Presented on
a Mercator projection, this map marks a significant advancement
in Japanese globular cartography and a far more sophisticated
adaptation of western cartographic standards than is evidenced
in most earlier Japanese world maps. No longer reliant on 17th
century Dutch maps acquired via the Dutch East India Company's
(VOC) trade concession in Nagasaki, the Japanese have here
abandoned many of the antiquated cartographic notions, such as
an insular California, which were common in Japanese maps of the
previous decade. Japanese cartographers may have been motivated
to update their traditional world view in the light of the
explosion of cartographic ideas associated with the arrival in
Edo Harbor of the American Commodore Matthew Perry in the same
year this map was published. As a whole this map offers a
sophisticated cartograp