“Reimaging Tianxia: Syncretic Chinese World Maps in the 17th and 18th Centuries,” Mapping East Asia in Context Symposium, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Abstract

<p>This paper investigates a group of syncretic world maps produced and circulated by lesser-known Chinese mapmakers from the late Ming to the mid-Qing periods. They reflected a special type of Chinese response to European cartography introduced by the Jesuit missionaries, thus playing a role in the cross-cultural encounter of China and Europe in the early modern era. The syncretic features of these maps suggest that some Chinese people of the time decided to make compromises in between two very different cartographic traditions. They tried to reimage the world that they knew of, adopting some novel forms and data but meanwhile adhering to some map-making conventions in accordance with the age-old concept of <em>Tianxia</em> 天下, or All-under-Heaven. No matter whether the syncretic practices proved to be valid and sustainable, these maps challenge the general understanding of Chinese responses to Western cartography. I further argue that they became an expedient choice and buffered the subsequent profound shifts in modern Chinese cartography.<br></p>