Tuesday 19 July 2016

Exploring Johnston's Archives (related to gardens of China) in Needham Institute part 3: Printed maps



Map 1 (Tube2): 北京市什刹海, 历史文化风景区远期规划,古迹分布分析图, December 1989

During the referencing of the Johnston Archives, I came across a number of printed maps (as opposed to the maps drawn by Johnston himself). Some of these are mostly interesting as memorabilia of tourism in China in the 1980-90s and will be treated in a separate post; the present post will review a few others that probably have historical value.

1) The map shown at the top of the article represents the planning of the historical zone of Beijing Shichahai (Beihai, Zhonghai, Nanhai), and could be of interest to urban planners and historians. 北京市什刹海, 历史文化风景区远期规划,古迹分布分析图, December 1989.

2) Specialists might also be interested in the map of Tongli, made in April 1980 (同里缜房屋分佈签 ). Its scale is 1 :1000, and according to my Chinese landscape architect friend was made by computer and hand (a type called 晒图 ). I wonder how it ended up in Johnston's collection as it was probably not something you could get easily as a foreigner at that time.


Map 2 (2016/1): 同里缜房屋分佈签, April 1980

3) Of similar technique is the map of Lili 黎里镇平面图 , scale of 1:5000, (晒图 type). Two dates appear: 1974 & 1982.


Map 3 (2016/1): 黎里镇平面图, 1982

4) A map of Ningbo that could not immediately be dated, titled 宁波市:交通导游图 & on the reverse 城,镇主要街巷图.


Map 4 (2016/1): 宁波市, 城,镇主要街巷图

5) A map of Shaoxing, titled 绍兴旅游交通图



Map 5 (2016/1): 绍兴旅游交通图


6) A map of PRC printed by the PRC cartographic publishing house. Annotation on the map indicates that it was distributed by China reconstructs, data up to 1981 June.


Map 6 (2016/1): Map of PRC, 1981


As usual, if you can provide more information or even corrections from what was presented in this post it is more than welcome. I can also provide closer up photos of the Tongli map, although the best would of course be to visit the Needham Institute.