While the rest of us are now in the full swing of fall with school, work and anticipation of the holiday season, Dr Wang has… Read More »Determining the Origin and Era of Asia as Depicted to the North of China on the First Chinese World Map
We are pleased to announce that on 11 July 2024, Dr Wang attended the The Zheng He Cultural and Art Festival and the Maritime Silk… Read More »The Zheng He Cultural and Art Festival and the Maritime Silk Road Expo
As fall approaches and the leaves change, most of us look forward to the start of the holiday season. Meanwhile, Dr Wang has been busy… Read More »An Ancient World Map Depicts West and Central Asia in 1433
In this chapter, the search for evidence that 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 is based on… Read More »An Ancient World Map Depicts the Indian Subcontinent and Its Eastern Periphery in the Period 1432–1433
Dr Wang continues the search for evidence that 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 is based on… Read More »An Ancient World Map Shows Chinese Exploration of Southeast Asia in 1432‒1433 long before the Europeans
Although, Dr Wang is an academic with writings and speech aimed at the academia, she understands that those mediums might be less approachable to the general public. As such, she engages in more casual formats with the aims of making her findings reachable and enjoyable to all.
In this interview, Dr Wang discusses how many of her arguments, including the importance of the Ming figure, Zheng He (鄭和), influenced or proceeded the European Age of Discovery and what it means to us in this age of rising Sino-Western tensions.
As children, we all learn about who discovered America. However, all those figures are Europeans. In this paper, Dr Wang analysis the 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. What she found is that contrary to popular belief, the Americas shown are not the result of European information, but Chinese sourced from Pre-Columbian times. Moreover, it shows the political landscape of the Americas in the 1420s and evidence for much earlier Chinese voyages.
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.
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, it is now summertime, but if you live in the Southern hemisphere, it is now winter. Today, this is common knowledge, but what about in antiquity? In this paper, by studying the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu 《坤舆万国全图》or Complete Geographical Map of All the Kingdoms of the World, Dr Wang makes the startling discovery that contrary to popular belief, Matteo Ricci and his Chinese collaborators did not base the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu solely on European Maps and instead shows proof the Ancient Chinese explored Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica, long before the Europeans.
Most people would assume Matteo Ricci’s 1602 world map ‒ Kunyu Wanguo Quantu《坤舆万国全图》 is strictly of European origin and from European knowledge. However, by comparing four other European maps (four maps are: 1) the 1562 Map of America by Diego Guttierez; 2) the 1569 World Map by Gerardus Mercator; 3) the 1570 World Map by Abraham Ortelius; and 4) the 1594 World Map by Petrus Plancius) of the same era, Dr Wang makes the startling argument that Kunyu Wanguo Quantu is of Chinese origin. The implications of this are profound as this implies the Chinese were in the Americas in the Pre-Columbian era.