Using the Web-based GIS viewer, an 1858 map of Tokyo from the Japanese Historic Map Collection (bottom) is blended with a modern satellite photo of the same area (top). (Maps courtesy East Asian Library, UC Berkeley)

East Asian Library partners with private collector to post historic Japanese maps online

By Kathleen Maclay | 25 February 2003

BERKELEY – Berkeley - A rarely seen and fragile collection of historic maps of Japan, some dating back four centuries, is available for public viewing online through a new partnership between the University of California, Berkeley's East Asian Library and private map collector David Rumsey.

More than 200 images from about 100 early maps of Japan, including examples of especially rare woodblock print maps of the city of Edo (now Tokyo), from the library's Japanese Historical Map Collection are in the online collection.

The entire collection is considered the largest, most comprehensive and most valuable of its kind outside of Japan. Most items were acquired by the library in 1949 from the Takakata family as part of a collection of more than 100,000 books, scrolls and maps. It will be scanned by Rumsey, owner of San Francisco-based Cartography Associates, and the campus at the rate of about 100 every three months. Eventually, each piece may be viewed by anyone, without charge, at any time, from anywhere, at http://www.davidrumsey.com/japan/.

"This is an amazing and rare collection that would otherwise be inaccessible to most people," said Peter Zhou, director of the East Asian Library. "Modern technology is allowing us to expand access to this important collection while, at the same time, ensuring its preservation for the future."

This 1710 map is based on the Buddhist conceptual model, placing the center of the world at the source of the four great rivers of India.

The collection includes works of art as well as renditions of cities, regions and countries from the Japanese perspective. A 1710 map based on the Buddhist conceptual model places the center of the world at the source of the four great rivers of India and features images of animals' mouths disgorging the source of these rivers in the Himalayas. Another depicts the coast of Japan, with Dutch and Chinese flotillas offshore. One map shows California as an island, and there are scroll maps, one 34 feet long and another 40 feet long, of the roads of Japan.

Among the most unusual items are 697 woodblock print maps dating from the Tokugawa period (1600-1867). There are 252 maps of Edo, 79 maps of Kyoto, 40 of Osaka, and 30 maps, all from the Tokugawa period, of other cities such as Kanazawa, Nagoya, Nagasaki and Yokohama. Among the earliest maps are those of Osaka (1656), Kyoto (1654-68) and Edo (1676). The earliest Japanese world maps also date from this period.

Both the physical material and online collections are "graphically stunning," said Rumsey.

Yuki Ishimatsu, head of Japanese collections at UC Berkeley's East Asian Library, selected the maps for the new online collection to serve as a representative sampling of the larger, physical map collection housed in that library.

"Choosing the maps to include in the initial collection to place online was difficult because each map is unique and important it its own way," Ishimatsu said. "However, we believe the collection presented currently provides a good cross section of the larger collection."

The collection provides an opportunity to learn about an entirely different cartographic tradition, Rumsey said, adding that Japanese historical maps are unique in the ways they depict space and cultural information.

The Insight viewer on the Japanese Historical Map Collection’s Web site allows visitors to see both full maps and detailed sections at the same time, as on this 1877 map of Osaka.

The "Insight" software of Los Angeles-based Luna Imaging is used on the collection's Web site, allowing users to zoom in, pan and do side-by-side comparisons of multiple maps simultaneously. Users can save groups of images to create their own customized collections. They also can crop or magnify areas of maps that otherwise would be difficult to decipher, and discover details that reflect artistry, culture, theology, precision and history. Map scholars also can search and sort, and compare and contrast, maps in the online collection based on catalogue records.

Visitors to the site can use state-of-the-art mapping and analytical tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to overlay maps from different dates to track changes in details such as elevations, population densities, street layouts, provincial boundaries, rivers, bays and much more. They can explore what some areas looked like at different periods in the past and what they're like today by coordinating the historic maps with modern ones, aerial photos and satellite imagery. Thirteen historic maps of Tokyo can be examined this way now; historic maps of Osaka and Kyoto will be added soon.

"Digitizing the collection really raises it to a new level," said Zhou, who approached Rumsey about digitizing the UC Berkeley collection when he learned of Rumsey's love of maps and skills in scanning and digitizing them for the Web. Rumsey's firm provides online distribution of digital images from The AMICO Library, with its more than 100,000 images of art, and Rumsey's own private collection of rare 18th and 19th century North and South American maps.

UC Berkeley professors agree that the online collection of Japanese maps will not just help student research and study, but may also enhance it.

Susan Matisoff, professor of Japanese literature and chair of UC Berkeley's Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, said she could imagine a student interested in the great Edo-based poet, Bashô, using period maps to track the exact locales of the various places in Edo where the poet lived, gaining a sense of the density of buildings in each area. Students also might follow on a provincial map the sites the poet visited when creating his poetic travel journals.

"Most books show sketch maps of his (Bashô's) journeys, but the specificity of the maps in this collection adds a whole new dimension," Matisoff said.

"Having the maps digitized and on the Web, giving one the ability to zoom in on the details, makes it possible to see things that really cannot be seen clearly with the naked eye, even if the viewer had gone to the trouble to identify a map and get access to the material in the rare book room," Matisoff said.

Mary Elizabeth Berry, a UC Berkeley professor of history with special research interest in Japan, has pored over the map collection with her students for years. She's excited about the online project because it opens the collection's access to a much wider audience and because Web site tools allow relatively easy exploration of the rich map data.

Berry is intrigued by the maps' detailed notation. For example, they may depict how villages were geographically distributed, distances between settlements, where railroads were built and where rock was exploded to make room for the tracks, or where the hiking trails were, and the location of gates leading to the emperor's palace. Students also can explore the visual and cartographic elements of the maps, noting how they changed over time.

"The study of history or language can be so abstract," Berry said. "Maps open up imaginations. They give you a sort of visual, literal introduction to a place. They restore that physical reality."