Japanese Maps of the Tokugawa Era
Bankoku-sozu
This double-sided Japanese woodcut displays a world map on the front and illustrated examples of the peoples of the world on the verso. It exemplifies the Bankoku-sozu (“complete maps of the peoples of the world”) style of cartography influenced by European techniques and geographic knowledge in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It can be found in the Japanese […]
Disaster Prints
Woodcuts by unknown authors from “Disaster Prints,” a part of the Japanese Maps of the Tokugawa Period digital collection. UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections holds one of the world’s largest collections of maps and guidebooks of the Japanese Tokugawa period, ca. 1600-1867. Most of this collection was acquired from George H. Beans, the original collector, and […]