Skip to content

An Ancient World Map Depicts Korea in 1433, Long Before the Arrival of the First Europeans

As Autumn (or Spring for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere) approaches and school begins for many, Dr Wang has found new information to learn in the coming year. In history classes, Dr Wang’s new discovery shows that the map, Kunyu Wanguo Quantu 《坤輿萬國全 圖/坤舆万国全图》, by Matteo Ricci continues to derive from Chinese sources – this time in regards to the Korean peninsula. As with her previous findings, the information is not of Europeans sources as the Eurocentric history once led us to believe. Below is a sneak-peek at her up-coming work on the Korean peninsula!

The full text is going to be included in a forthcoming book entitled Chinese explored Asia long before the Europeans, An Ancient World Map Tells All (World Scientific, 2025).

Abstract

This chapter reports that an ancient world map ‒ Kunyu Wanguo Quantu 《坤輿萬國全 圖/坤舆万国全图》or Complete Geographical Map of All the Kingdoms of the World published by Matteo Ricci in 1602 in China ‒ depicts Korea in 1433, long before the first Europeans landed on Korea. An insightful analysis of the annotation, and the locations and histories of all the geographical items depicted on the Korean portion of this map shows that the map is of Chinese origin, not a direct or adapted copy of the major European maps before 1602.

Keywords: China, Europeans, Korea, Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, Matteo Ricci

Tags:

1 thought on “An Ancient World Map Depicts Korea in 1433, Long Before the Arrival of the First Europeans”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *