Nihon kaisan chōrikuzu 日本海山潮陸図 [or] Nihon ōezu 日本大繪圖 [or] Dai Nihonkoku no zu 大日本繪圖 [Maps of the Seas & Lands of Japan]

Woodblock-printed map (830 x 1715 mm.), finely hand-colored. Edo: Sagamiya Tahei 相模屋太兵衞, 1697.




The 1697 printing of Ishikawa’s famous map of Japan; a less complex printing was first issued in 1691 (an earlier version with a different title appeared in 1689). The series of maps published by Ishikawa, an ukiyo-e artist, “established a model for woodblock maps throughout most of the eighteenth century. Works based on Ishikawa's original version, and published mainly in the area of Edo, are referred to as Ryūsen-type maps of Japan. Ishikawa’s
maps were both decorative and practical, and they served as a combined Who’s Who (truncated) and travel map. Useful information to administrators, travelers, and the general public included the names of feudal lords, the standard productivity of the land in koku of rice, and important and scenic places along the routes. Each new edition tended to expand both the informative and ornamental aspects of the work.”–Kazutaka Unno, “Cartography in Japan” in The History of Cartography, Vol. 2, Book 2 (Chicago: 1994), pp. 412-13.


Our map is finely hand-colored, showing fiefdoms, and includes lists of important place names and shrines, a chart of tidal variations, and a chart of seasonal changes. Another chart gives distances from Nagasaki to far-away destinations such as Holland, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and several port cities of China. The main highways are shown as well as the inland and coastal sea routes. Also indicated are post stations on highways such as the Tōkaidō, running from Edo (present-day Tokyo) to Kyoto, and the distances between stations. Thanks to the beautiful colors and wealth of information, Ryūsen’s maps became very popular, and this style of map set the pattern for most published maps of Japan for the next century.


In the extremities of the map, small portions of China, Korea, Ryūkyū, and Hokkaido are shown.


Fine copy. Short clean splits in a couple of folds. Well-backed, and minor worming mended.


❧ Mary Elizabeth Berry, Japan in Print. Information and Nation in the Early Modern Period (California: 2006), pp. 2-3–The map is “so legible and packed with information that it has been revised and reissued annually since its first publication in 1689. It charts the nation’s provinces and castle towns, land and water routes, famous sites and scenic places. It labels every ferry crossing and every post station along the major highways, listing the distances between stops in an index. Thick with social and political geography, it also identifies all regional lords, or daimyo, with notes on the gross productivity of their domains.”. (Inventory #: 10493)