Japanese Maps : Hizen Nagasaki no zu

Japanese Maps

<p style='text-align: justify;'> Wood-block printed, commercial map of the city of Nagasaki, in Japanese, one sheet, folded, oriented with north to the upper right corner. The title is reported on a mounted cover label. A colophon preceded by a small preface, in the lower left section, reports the name of the shop responsible for the publication of the map (Kōjudō 耕寿堂 , in Nagasaki) but no date of publication. Kornicki (1993) estimates that the map was published in the first half of the 19th century (and then further amended at the end of the Edo or Tokugawa period 1603-1868).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Nagasaki was one of the most commonly represented port cities of Japan in the in the Edo period. The ruling Tokugawa family favoured isolation in foreign policy, and Nagasaki was the one of the very few "international hubs" and gateways to the external world in Japan at the time. It hosted two foreign communities (a Chinese community and a community linked to the Dutch East India Company, both in secluded areas of the city, marked on the map) and worked as a point of entry for goods both from China and from Europe.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The map focuses on this role of Nagasaki as a port. It covers a smaller area than Japanese 104, but similarly and even more richly uses colours and pictorial elements to highlight ships and embankments, as well as other elements commonly represented pictorially in maps, such as temples and shrines, hills and vegetation. In the lower left section, the map includes a small legend (reporting the symbols used for the locations of daimyō's residences and offices and of town elders), and two plates, with distances by land and sea from Nagasaki to locations both in and outside Japan. This map is from the same block as the one described in Mody (1969, plate 41). </p>