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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 51| June 2001


A Rare Atlas of China's Provinces

Atlas of China's Province    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Province de Quang-Tong
J.B.B. D’Anville Nouvel atlas de la Chìne … 1785 2 ed.
Amsterdam: chez Barthelmy Vlam

 

The National Library recently purchased a rare and detailed atlas of China’s provinces, published by the cartographer Jean B. B. D’Anville.

Jean Baptiste Bourguignon D’Anville was a noted French cartographer in the eighteenth century, appointed royal geographer and cartographer and elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1773. Described as a map editor who designed new maps by collecting and comparing as many sources as possible, D’Anville was renowned for his scrupulous attention to detail, correcting and reissuing maps as new information became available. Each important map was published with a critical essay on geography and cartography. His output was consequently small, numbering about 200 maps, with several significant atlases included.

He first published his Nouvel atlas de la Chine in 1737. Consisting of 42 maps, each of the separate provinces are described in detail and extend to the territories of Tibet, with 10 sheets, and Korea, with one general map of the country. The atlas was first published to accompany Pere J.B. du Halde’s Description géographique, historique, chronologique, et physique de l’empire de la Chine, which the Library holds in its Rare Book collection. The atlas is important not only for the detailed coverage of China, but also because it contains the first separate map of Korea by a European cartographer, the first serious study of Tibet and the most important set of maps of China since the Blaeu/Martini atlas, which the Library also holds in the 1659 edition of the work.

The second edition of the D’Anville atlas, published in 1785, is not widely held, and provides an important link in the range of mapping the Library holds of China’s provinces from the seventeenth century through to the late twentieth century.
—Maura O’Connor

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