The earliest maps date back two millennia. Ptolemy, who lived in Alexandria in Egypt from about AD87 to AD150, is often referred to as the “father of geography”. He was one of the first people to document tales brought back from Asia and elsewhere by merchants and seafarers and to try and make geographical sense of them. His work, the Geographia, exerted a major influence on how Europeans viewed the world. It was translated into several languages and was copied and printed for the next 1,500 years.
Sebastian Munster (1489-1552) from Germany produced his edition of the Geographia in 1540. It included separate maps, for the first time, of Europe, Asia, Africa and America. Then in 1578 a further edition was produced by the most famous cartographer of the age, the Flemish Gerard Mercator(1512-1594).
Mercator was responsible for introducing the method by which a round world could be translated onto a flat surface. He also coined the term ‘atlas’ to denote a collection of maps, a concept further enhanced by Abraham Ortelius(1527-1598) who produced the first modern atlas, Orbis Terrarum, in 1570 containing seventy maps set out in a similar size.
Early Mapmakers: Speed, Blaeu, Bellin and Tallis
Other cartographers followed - John Speed (1552-1629) from England, the Dutchman Willem Blaeu(1571-1638), the Frenchman Nicholas Bellin(1703-1772), and the London map publishers Tallis & Co who traded under various names, including John Tallis, between 1838-1851. Their maps are highly sought after today.
Antique Maps of China and Hong Kong: Du Halde and Matteo Ricci
The earliest atlas map of China was published by Abraham Ortelius in Antwerp in 1584 based on the work of the Portuguese cartographer, Luiz Jorge de Barbuda. Meanwhile, in the same year, the Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, who arrived in Macau in 1582, was publishing the first European map of the world in the Chinese language, based mainly on Ortelius’s world map of 1570.
Landmarks in the European mapping of China followed, by Martini, published by Blaeu in Amsterdam as Atlas Sinensis in 1655, and du Halde, published by D’Anville in Paris as Description Geographique de la Chine in 1735.
The earliest map of Canton (now called Guangzhou) appeared in the Atlas Sinensis, while the earliest map focusing on the Canton River was published in Description Geographique de la Chine.
The first map to show any detail of Hong Kong was by the British hydrographer, Alexander Dalrymple, whose chart of part of the coast of China, 1771, shows an early outline of south of the island named Fanchin Chow.
Dealers of Antique Hong Kong and China Maps
Two dealers in Hong Kong have a large selection of maps on China and Hong Kong. Wattis Fine Art is run by Jonathan Wattis who worked for Christies auction house in London before moving to Hong Kong, and Picture This run by ex banker Chris Bailey.
Irrespective of their investment value, these maps and views of a place long ago will bring pleasure for years to come.
To Learn More About Antique Maps of Hong Kong and China
Further reading on maps: Carl Moreland and David Bannister, Antique Maps, pub. Phaidon, London, 1993; Mapping the Continent of Asia, pub. Antiques of the Orient, Singapore, 1994; R.T.Fell, Early Maps of South-East Asia, Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1991.
Valery Garrett - I was born in England but I’ve lived in Hong Kong for over thirty years. At first I worked as a fashion designer for some large ...
