WORLD MAP 1878
MOREI, NISHIKI, publisher. [Myriad Unknown Countries Mapped to the Southern Hemisphere.] [Osaka]: Dec. 25, 1878.
Hand-colored woodcut double-hemispheric map of the world in four sections, each of two sheets, each section of two sheets 14 x 35 in. (355 x 920 mm), forming a world map 28 x 70 in., arranged in a concertina format 14 x 4½ in. Yellow card covers, title label on upper cover, title on verso, and publisher's information and date on final section. Title followed by a long geographical table of information, and the four-section map. Clean short tear along one fold line.
Clearly an accurate map of the world from the Japanese perspective, and probably issued for the rising "gentry" of Japan. The knowledge of the form of the world was extremely restricted until the Meiji period in 1868. After this point, Japanese geography began to flower, as generations of Japanese wanted to know what lay beyond their islands. From about the 1790s the double-hemispheric map of the world had been adopted by Japanese cartographers, copying even Mercator’s 16th century geography. This Meiji period version attempts to be an up-to-date version of the world, with a clearly defined Australia, accurate Americas and Europe. It does not include any information on the poles, which may have been deliberately left out of this concertina format version.