Africa is one of those places that those, in the Global North, either do not think about or only have a superficial knowledge about. However, like any other human-inhabited continent on earth, Africa is made up of many countries and has a very long history. In today’s paper, Dr Wang takes us on a journey to the early days of Sino-African exchanges. The Chinese-based world map Kunyu Wanguo Quantu 《坤輿萬國全圖》or Complete Geographical Map of All the Kingdoms of the World is long thought to be a copy of European maps. However, Dr Wang argues the map is derived from Chinese sources that originated in the year 1433, during the last of the seven Ming voyages.
Abstract
This paper shows that the African portion of a Chinese-based world map Kunyu Wanguo Quantu 《坤輿萬國全圖》or Complete Geographical Map of All the Kingdoms of the World published by Matteo Ricci in 1602 in China, is not a direct or adapted copy of the three major sixteenth-century European maps.
This paper also presents strong evidence which contradicts the viewpoint that the Treasure Fleets led by Admiral Zheng He (郑和) to the Western Ocean during their seven epic voyages in the early fifteenth century of the Ming dynasty only reached as far as the east coast of Africa.
Through a thorough analysis of the eleven original annotations and the 185 geographical terms ‒ kingdoms/empires, city-states, regions, cities/towns, rivers, lakes, mountains, islands, oceans and seas ‒ depicted on the map of Africa in Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, and their comparison with the corresponding geographical terms on the three major sixteenth-century European maps, lead me to draw the following conclusions: 1) the Ming mariners drew map of Africa in 1433 ‒ the year when they explored Africa during their seventh (and last) voyage to the Western Ocean ‒ decades before the Europeans reached the African coastal area; this Chinese map later became the source map used by Matteo Ricci to draw the African portion of Kunyu Wanguo Quantu; and 2) the map shows correctly the relative positions of the southernmost tip of African and the Cape of Good Hope, and strongly supports the claim that Zheng He’s mariners most likely have rounded that tip into the Atlantic Ocean on the western side of the continent, enabling them to eventually reach the New World beyond.
Keywords: Africa, Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, Matteo Ricci, Treasure Fleets, Zheng He
Full text will be included in a forthcoming book, entitled “Chinese Global Exploration in the Pre-Columbian Era: Evidence from an Ancient World Map (World Scientific, Summer 2023).
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