The orientation of maps is arbitrary, you know. The cartographic spread we’re accustomed to which, not so coincidentally, shows the United States and Western Europe as the center of the world is what it is because it was drawn by Americans and Western Europeans.
The 400 year old Ricci map (pictured at left), drawn by a Jesuit missionary and the first map in Chinese to show the Americas, has a different orientation: China is shown as the center of the world.
The Library of Congress has put its rare copy of the Ricci map on display:
A rarely seen 400-year-old map that identified Florida as “the Land of Flowers” and put China at the centre of the world went on display on Tuesday at the Library of Congress.
The map created by Matteo Ricci was the first in Chinese to show the Americas. Ricci, a Jesuit missionary from Italy, was the first Westerner to visit what is now Beijing in the late 1500s. Known for introducing Western science to China, Ricci created the map in 1602 at the request of Emperor Wanli.
The map includes pictures and annotations describing different regions of the world. Africa was noted to have the world’s highest mountain and longest river. The description of North America is brief with mentions of “humped oxen” or bison, wild horses and a region named “Ka-na-ta.”
