Shanhai Yudi Quantu


The Shanhai Yudi Quantu is a Ming dynasty Chinese map published in 1609 in the leishu encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui.

Influences

The Shanhai Yudi Quantu is known to have been highly influenced by the Jesuit missions in China, starting with the work of Matteo Ricci. Matteo Ricci himself had two of his own maps entitled Shanhai Yudi Quantu: one engraved by Wu Zhongming and dated 1600 and another engraved by Guo Zizhang and dated 1604.

Description

Asia

The Asian continent is marked phonetically 亞細亞. This is the area of the map where most information can be found, and has been subdivided here by regions:

East Asia

Numerous areas and islands are named in this part of the world:
The seas beside East Asia are the South China Sea and the "Lesser Eastern Ocean". To the north is the "Ice Sea".

West Asia

Two seas are shown: the Bay of Bengal and "Lesser Western Ocean".
Java is shown in two pieces Major and Minor far into the "Southwest" and "Southern" Seas near the Antarctic.

Europe

is marked phonetically as 歐羅巴.
Europe is surrounded by the "Greater Western Ocean", the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea.

North America

is marked as "北亞墨利加". The only location is marked phonetically and is unknown:
Another two unknown locations are on an island to America's northeast, possibly the inhabited southwest coast of Greenland:
The Gulf of California is marked as the "Eastern Red Sea" and the "Ice Sea" continues across the north.

South America

is marked as "南亞墨利加".
Surrounding it are the Atlantic Ocean to the northeast, the "Sea of Peru" to the west, and the "Greater Eastern Ocean".

Libya

Following classical geography, the continent of Africa is marked phonetically as "Libya".
Africa is surrounded by several seas. From the north, clockwise: the Mediterranean; the "Lesser Western Ocean" in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea; the Red Sea, called the "Western Red Sea" ; the western Indian Ocean, called the "Arabian Sea" ; the Gulf of Guinea, called the "Libyan Sea" ; and the Atlantic Ocean.

Magallania

The still-uncertain Terra Australis today Australia, Antarctica, New Zealand, and other islands is marked phonetically as 墨瓦臘泥加. This transliterates the name "Magallanica", a name given to the prospective continent at the time in honor of Ferdinand Magellan, who had crossed past Tierra del Fuego and shown the southern continent to be separate from South America.
The map notes how little is known about this continent "Few have reached these southern regions. Things are not explored yet" and then ironically proceeds to include more placenames than Africa, America, or Europe:
A large number of maps were derived from the Shanhai Yudi Quantu, many of them today in Korean or Japanese archives, but their history is generally difficult to reconstruct.