Government Cartography in Sixteenth Century Japan

The existence of two old county maps The Uesugi family, whose ancestors were feudal lords of the Yonezawa domain from 1601 through 1871, of Yonezawa City in northeastern Honshu of Japan preserves one old large-scale map each of Seba County and Kubiki County in Echigo Province. The existence of these maps was not known in Japanese academic circles before 1959 when Tasaburo It6 published his article on these maps in Nihon Rekishi (History of Japan).' The map of Seba County was reproduced in colour in Nihon Kochizu Taisei (Monumenta Cartographica Japonica), in 1972 with an explanation of the map by 1t6Y Tokyo Daigaku Shiryo Hensan-jo (Historiographical Institute, University of Tokyo) published a facsimile of the map of Kubiki County in 1983, and a facsimile of the map of Seba County in 1985. A book containing all of the inscription on these maps was published by the same publisher in 1987, and therefore the difficulties of studying these maps have been removed.3 Neither gives any indication of the date of its completion, but we know that both were completed before 12 November in the second year of Keicho (1597) by a piece of paper attached to the back of the map of Kubiki County, because this piece of paper records that a place name was corrected at the date. We find also a date of the fourth year of Bunroku (1595) in a note of a village shown on the map of Seba County. Accordingly it is certain that both maps were completed between 1596 and November 1597. The size of Seba County map is 2430 X 6930 mm and that of Kubiki County map 3400X5860 mm. Both maps are orientated with the south-east at the top, presumably because the map makers wanted to have the coastline at the bottom of the maps. The exact scale of the maps is not given. It is certainly larger than 1:ca.5,000, though it is doubtful if the scaling is uniform in all the sections of the maps. The land contours are not completely levelled and the mountains are represented obliquely as seen from above. The maps show as much detail as possible in terms

Cartography · Geography · Government (linguistics · Regional science · Geographic Information Systems Studies · Philosophy

• The "Spatial Vernacular" in Tokugawa Maps

  Open Access•Marcia Yonemoto•The Journal of Asian Studies•2000

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