Cartographic Japan : a history in maps / edited by Kären Wigen, Sugimoto Fumiko, and Cary Karacas.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wigen, Kären, 1958- editor.

Sugimoto, Fumiko, 1958- editor.

Karacas, Cary, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cartography--Japan--History.

Cartography.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (282 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago, [Illinois] ; London, [England] : The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Miles of shelf space in contemporary Japanese bookstores and libraries are devoted to travel guides, walking maps, and topical atlases. Young Japanese children are taught how to properly map their classrooms and schoolgrounds. Elderly retirees pore over old castle plans and village cadasters. Pioneering surveyors are featured in popular television shows, and avid collectors covet exquisite scrolls depicting sea and land routes. Today, Japanese people are zealous producers and consumers of cartography, and maps are an integral part of daily life. But this was not always the case: a thousand years ago, maps were solely a privilege of the ruling elite in Japan. Only in the past four hundred years has Japanese cartography truly taken off, and between the dawn of Japan’s cartographic explosion and today, the nation’s society and landscape have undergone major transformations. At every point, maps have documented those monumental changes. Cartographic Japan offers a rich introduction to the resulting treasure trove, with close analysis of one hundred maps from the late 1500s to the present day, each one treated as a distinctive window onto Japan’s tumultuous history. Forty-seven distinguished contributors—hailing from Japan, North America, Europe, and Australia—uncover the meanings behind a key selection of these maps, situating them in historical context and explaining how they were made, read, and used at the time. With more than one hundred gorgeous full-color illustrations, Cartographic Japan offers an enlightening tour of Japan’s magnificent cartographic archive.

Contents:

Contents; A Note on Japanese Names and Terms; Introduction - Kären Wigen; Part I. Visualizing the Realm: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries; Introduction to Part I - Sugimoto Fumiko; Japan in the World; 1. Japan and a New-Found World - Joseph Loh; 2. The World from the Waterline - Peter D. Shapinsky; 3. Elusive Islands of Silver: Japan in the Early European Geographic Imagination - Oka Mihoko; 4. Mapping the Margins of Japan - Ronald P. Toby; 5. The Creators and Historical Context of the Oldest Maps of the Ryukyu Kingdom - Watanabe Miki

Mapping the City13. Characteristics of Premodern Urban Space - Tamai Tetsuo; 14. Evolving Cartography of an Ancient Capital - Uesugi Kazuhiro; 15. Historical Landscapes of Osaka - Uesugi Kazuhiro; 16. The Urban Landscape of Early Edo in an East Asian Context - Tamai Tetsuo; 17. Spatial Visions of Status - Ronald P. Toby; 18. The Social Landscape of Edo - Paul Waley; 19. What Is a Street? - Mary Elizabeth Berry; Sacred Sites and Cosmic Visions; 20. Locating Japan in a Buddhist World - D. Max Moerman

21. Picturing Maps: The "Rare and Wondrous" Bird's-Eye Views of Kuwagata Keisai - Henry D. Smith II22. An Artist's Rendering of the Divine Mount Fuji - Miyazaki Fumiko; 23. Rock of Ages: Traces of the Gods in Akita - Anne Walthall; 24. Cosmology and Science in Japan's Last Buddhist World Map - Sayoko Sakakibara; Travelscapes; 25. Fun with Moral Mapping in the Mid-Nineteenth Century - Robert Goree; 26. A Travel Map Adjusted to Urgent Circumstances - Kären Wigen and Sayoko Sakakibara; 27. Legendary Landscape at the Kitayama Palace - Nicolas Fiévé

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780226073194

022607319X

OCLC:

1233040660