Chan Vai Hang
President of Macao’s History Institute
At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese sailed to the Orient and established regular navigation lines connecting the Atlantic with the Indian Ocean. In the 16th century, they arrived in the Pacific Ocean and the Far East, which thereby revealed the prelude to the modern communications with the oriental civilization.
“It was a great historical process (…) a traffic used for colonisation and commerce led to culture communications. When Colombo first sailed, no one could imagine what the world history would be like afterwards. At that time, Western Europe had walked out of the middle Ages, and a new culture characterised by humanism and rationalism was growing; as a new system, capitalism was developing and showing its force to the world along with the expansion of colonialism. While this civilisation was totally unrelated with that of Confucianism-advocating Chinese politics, culture and ethics. The 16th century heralded the inevitability of the meeting of oriental and occidental civilisations, for the history had been preparing for the event. Several navigation (such as the Chinese Zheng He’s, the Europeans Colombo’s, Magallance’s, Gama’s, etc) gave an impetus beyond all doubt to the movement of the collision points between the two civilizations.”1
During the period of the convergence of modern oriental and occidental civilisations, various natural sciences departed from natural philosophy and maintained independence. The 19th century was the time when a new geography replaced the western classical one. Geography, as a branch of study, covering the fields of humanism and natural science, exercised more and more deep-going influences over the process of human civilisation.
All these mentioned above could be proved by the maps of Macao from the 18th century to the 20th century, collected by Mr. Tam Siu Cheong, a map collector of Hong Kong.
For example, the illustration (Nº5) of Entering Macao Along the Sea Route, published in England in 1738, was drawn delicately to show how to arrive in KANTAN (Guangzhong) through MA-KAU (Macao) and Humen along the waterway, by marking the depth of water of every route, which reflected the contemporary mature mapping and surveying techniques of the West.
On the left of this chart, there is a concise map of Guangzhou, on which the Pearl River and the Guangzhou City were clearly marked out.
Another illustration about Macao CARTE SE L’ENTRE DE MACAO (Nº11-3) is a chart of waterway, drawn by a Frenchman in the 18th century. Since Macao was the unique city opening to the outside world, its conditions were described in detail on the map, especially that of the ancient waterway, Shizimen (Crossdoor) in the south of the Peninsula of Macao. As the waterway was the only way for the western and eastern merchant ships to moor and get out and into Macao, its depth of water was marked more detailed than that of the Peninsula. This chart is a practical navigation map.
The early maps of Macao published by the West were tinted with remarkably practical flavour.
Another illustration of the same book (Nº11-1) PLAN DE LA VILLE DE MACAO shows thoroughly the conditions of the Peninsula of Macao at the end of the 18th century: Portuguese lived in the Peninsula from the foot of Collin de Penha in the south to the city gate of Rua do Campo in the north, where were thickly dotted with houses. While the region to the south of Colina da Penha including Colina de Barra was still in a natural state, with criss-crossed fields and villages. The area to the north of the city gate of Rua do Campo was mainly inhabited by Chinese, and in its centre was pieces of farmland. Ilha Verde and ancient Istmo Ferreira do Amaral became important symbols to identify the boundary of the city, which corresponded to the contemporary annals: “the Mount of Macao lies 120 miles to the east of the Southeast of Macao, opposite to the city in the east, surrounded in the south by the tidewater of Shizimen, facing Hengqin in the west and next to the mount of Qingzhou in the north.”2
The map TOWN AND HARBOUR OF MACAO (Nº24) drawn by hand by a Englishman in 1867 is also about the Peninsula of Macao, but there are some comparatively notable changes: one is the disappearance of the city wall of Rua do Campo, demolished by Portuguese; the other refers to the expansion of the city towards the north under the governance of Portuguese, which happened after the Event of Ferreira do Amaral in 1849: Portuguese refused to pay to Xiangshan County the land rent that had been collected for more than 270 years, what’s more, they pulled down the city wall in order to enlarge the city and to expand towards the north.
Another map of the Peninsula of Macao is the illustration THE PORTUGUESE SETTLEMENT MACAO (Nº27) published in 1849. On the left upper corner is written “Established in 1557”, but what this map actually shows is that the Portuguese seized villages, destroyed fields and built roads in the north after they forcibly occupied the Peninsula: apart from the streets thoroughly marked on the map, the old churches like the St. Francisco Church, the Ruins of St. Paul, the position of the old fort set up in the Ming Dynasty and the outward appearance of the Governor’s Mansion Santa Sancha were also drawn on it. Even the fort of Colina de Mong Ha and Flora Palace constructed in the late Qing Dynasty were marked, too. Carefully observing this map, one can find that Estrada de Adolfo de Loureiro was built, that the such streets as Estrada do Coelho do Amaral, Estrada da Bela Vista e Istmo Ferreira do Amaral had took shapes and was afforested with trees. It is an important map reflecting the actual conditions of Macao in the late Qing Dynasty.
“In the 16th century, some foreigners that Chinese never knew appeared from time to time in the southern coast land of China and came in unequal numbers every time and more and more frequently. They were Europeans who came to China following Marco Polo.” “The Ming Dynasty knew nothing about what changes had happened in the remote West. West Europe had stepped in modern times under the impetus given by the Renaissance, religious reform and the experimental science. The navigational career prospered abruptly along with geographical discoveries and connected the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.”3
The westerners put their modern scientific techniques to use to record and study the East. “In modern science, geography is a branch of study with multifarious and disorder contents. Until the 19th century, the modern geography gradually cast off the state of semi-science and semi-literature, began to absorb the achievements of modern science and formed a set of working patterns of its own.”4 In this exhibition, there also are CHINESISCHE KUSTE (Nº17) drawn by a German in 1834, Sea Chart of Guangdong and the Delta of the Pearl River (Nº18) in 1840, Detailed Military Chart of the Delta of the Pearl River (Nº22) in 1844, Chart of Macao and Nearby Regions (Nº10) drawn by a Englishman in 1780, Chart of the Distribution of Guangzhou and the Delta of the Pearl River (Nº21) in 1844, Map of the Relations Among Guangzhou, Macao and the Delta (Nº25) in 1880, Chart of Nearby Rivers of Guangzhou (Nº8) drawn by a Frenchman in 1760, etc.. All these old maps in the categories of traffic, military field, or tourism, mirror the cognition and the degree of study of modern western surveyors towards the nature and geographical style and features of the Orient, and their orderly description and explanations towards various phenomena of the objects of study as well.
In this exhibition, a batch of old maps published in China is also exhibited, which there is Map of Guangdong published in the 5th year of Tongzhi reign, Qing Dynasty (in 1866). This set of maps covered the regions like Xiangshan, Xinning, Xinhui, Shunde, Heshan, etc., and Macao was drawn on the 11th volume Map of Xiangshan, where some places of Macao like Porta do Cerco, Ilha Verde, Jitou, Taipa, Jiu’ao, Guoluhua and Shizimen were marked. In spite of the long history of mapping in China and the long tradition of geographical research, the comparatively closed-door geographical position (China lies in the east part of the Asian continent, facing the Pacific in the east, with deserts in the Northwest and forests and valleys in the Southwest.) affected Chinese geographical opinions: “the Heaven is above, the earth is below, China lies in the middle. Beside the centre are four foreign parts. They are outside while China is inside.”5
When modern western geography had developed rapidly, the Chinese geography was still in its original level. Though the Jesuit Matteaus Ricci who came to China at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and his followers like Julius Aleni, Didacus de Pantojoa, Nicolaus Longobardi, Ferdinand Verbiest, took new western geographical knowledge to China, the evolution of Chinese space-geographical concept was rather slow and the ideology of Round Heaven and Square Earth was deep-rooted as before, which can be proved by the Map of Guangdong. As a modern famous geographic Tan Qixiang points: “the study of geography of the Qing Dynasty is but an old summary, and it cannot become a new beginning.”6
Macao is a city with particular historical experiences where oriental and occidental civilizations coexist; modern occidental civilization enters the Orient and exerts far-reaching influences. What the achievements in mapping reflect is not simply the superiority or inferiority in techniques, but the degrees of human’s pursuit of geographical environments and their changing laws, as well as those of human’s cognition towards nature and themselves. These exhibited maps in modern or ancient times, in China or elsewhere, undoubtedly provide a new angle for us to study and know about Macao’s history.
Notes:
1. Chen Lemin, Chronology of Portuguese Communications with China in the 16th Century, Liaoning Educational Publishing House, 2000, p.34.
2. Qianlong reins, The Annals of Xiangshan County, Vol. I, Mountain.
3. Chen Yuemin, Chronology of Portuguese Communications with China in the 16th Century, Liaoning Educational Publishing House, 2000, p.1.
4. Zou Zhenhua, Western Geography of the Late Qing Dynasty in China. Shanghai Ancient-Books Publishing House, 2000, p.34.
5. Shi Jie, About China, in Collected Works of Mr. Shi, Chinese
Publishing House, 1984, Page 116. Quoted from a secondary source Western Geography of the Late Qing Dynasty in China, p.40.
6. Tan Qixiang, Corpus of the Works on Geography of the Qing Dynasty, Volume 1, Zhejiang People’s Publishing House, and edition in 1986, Page 2. Quoted from a secondary source Western Geography of the Late Qing Dynasty in China, p.309.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
To See Macao’s History in the Old Maps
source: IACM - MACAU GOV WEBSITE
Chan Vai Hang
President of Macao’s History Institute
At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese sailed to the Orient and established regular navigation lines connecting the Atlantic with the Indian Ocean. In the 16th century, they arrived in the Pacific Ocean and the Far East, which thereby revealed the prelude to the modern communications with the oriental civilization.
“It was a great historical process (…) a traffic used for colonisation and commerce led to culture communications. When Colombo first sailed, no one could imagine what the world history would be like afterwards. At that time, Western Europe had walked out of the middle Ages, and a new culture characterised by humanism and rationalism was growing; as a new system, capitalism was developing and showing its force to the world along with the expansion of colonialism. While this civilisation was totally unrelated with that of Confucianism-advocating Chinese politics, culture and ethics. The 16th century heralded the inevitability of the meeting of oriental and occidental civilisations, for the history had been preparing for the event. Several navigation (such as the Chinese Zheng He’s, the Europeans Colombo’s, Magallance’s, Gama’s, etc) gave an impetus beyond all doubt to the movement of the collision points between the two civilizations.”1
During the period of the convergence of modern oriental and occidental civilisations, various natural sciences departed from natural philosophy and maintained independence. The 19th century was the time when a new geography replaced the western classical one. Geography, as a branch of study, covering the fields of humanism and natural science, exercised more and more deep-going influences over the process of human civilisation.
All these mentioned above could be proved by the maps of Macao from the 18th century to the 20th century, collected by Mr. Tam Siu Cheong, a map collector of Hong Kong.
For example, the illustration (Nº5) of Entering Macao Along the Sea Route, published in England in 1738, was drawn delicately to show how to arrive in KANTAN (Guangzhong) through MA-KAU (Macao) and Humen along the waterway, by marking the depth of water of every route, which reflected the contemporary mature mapping and surveying techniques of the West.
On the left of this chart, there is a concise map of Guangzhou, on which the Pearl River and the Guangzhou City were clearly marked out.
Another illustration about Macao CARTE SE L’ENTRE DE MACAO (Nº11-3) is a chart of waterway, drawn by a Frenchman in the 18th century. Since Macao was the unique city opening to the outside world, its conditions were described in detail on the map, especially that of the ancient waterway, Shizimen (Crossdoor) in the south of the Peninsula of Macao. As the waterway was the only way for the western and eastern merchant ships to moor and get out and into Macao, its depth of water was marked more detailed than that of the Peninsula. This chart is a practical navigation map.
The early maps of Macao published by the West were tinted with remarkably practical flavour.
Another illustration of the same book (Nº11-1) PLAN DE LA VILLE DE MACAO shows thoroughly the conditions of the Peninsula of Macao at the end of the 18th century: Portuguese lived in the Peninsula from the foot of Collin de Penha in the south to the city gate of Rua do Campo in the north, where were thickly dotted with houses. While the region to the south of Colina da Penha including Colina de Barra was still in a natural state, with criss-crossed fields and villages. The area to the north of the city gate of Rua do Campo was mainly inhabited by Chinese, and in its centre was pieces of farmland. Ilha Verde and ancient Istmo Ferreira do Amaral became important symbols to identify the boundary of the city, which corresponded to the contemporary annals: “the Mount of Macao lies 120 miles to the east of the Southeast of Macao, opposite to the city in the east, surrounded in the south by the tidewater of Shizimen, facing Hengqin in the west and next to the mount of Qingzhou in the north.”2
The map TOWN AND HARBOUR OF MACAO (Nº24) drawn by hand by a Englishman in 1867 is also about the Peninsula of Macao, but there are some comparatively notable changes: one is the disappearance of the city wall of Rua do Campo, demolished by Portuguese; the other refers to the expansion of the city towards the north under the governance of Portuguese, which happened after the Event of Ferreira do Amaral in 1849: Portuguese refused to pay to Xiangshan County the land rent that had been collected for more than 270 years, what’s more, they pulled down the city wall in order to enlarge the city and to expand towards the north.
Another map of the Peninsula of Macao is the illustration THE PORTUGUESE SETTLEMENT MACAO (Nº27) published in 1849. On the left upper corner is written “Established in 1557”, but what this map actually shows is that the Portuguese seized villages, destroyed fields and built roads in the north after they forcibly occupied the Peninsula: apart from the streets thoroughly marked on the map, the old churches like the St. Francisco Church, the Ruins of St. Paul, the position of the old fort set up in the Ming Dynasty and the outward appearance of the Governor’s Mansion Santa Sancha were also drawn on it. Even the fort of Colina de Mong Ha and Flora Palace constructed in the late Qing Dynasty were marked, too. Carefully observing this map, one can find that Estrada de Adolfo de Loureiro was built, that the such streets as Estrada do Coelho do Amaral, Estrada da Bela Vista e Istmo Ferreira do Amaral had took shapes and was afforested with trees. It is an important map reflecting the actual conditions of Macao in the late Qing Dynasty.
“In the 16th century, some foreigners that Chinese never knew appeared from time to time in the southern coast land of China and came in unequal numbers every time and more and more frequently. They were Europeans who came to China following Marco Polo.” “The Ming Dynasty knew nothing about what changes had happened in the remote West. West Europe had stepped in modern times under the impetus given by the Renaissance, religious reform and the experimental science. The navigational career prospered abruptly along with geographical discoveries and connected the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.”3
The westerners put their modern scientific techniques to use to record and study the East. “In modern science, geography is a branch of study with multifarious and disorder contents. Until the 19th century, the modern geography gradually cast off the state of semi-science and semi-literature, began to absorb the achievements of modern science and formed a set of working patterns of its own.”4 In this exhibition, there also are CHINESISCHE KUSTE (Nº17) drawn by a German in 1834, Sea Chart of Guangdong and the Delta of the Pearl River (Nº18) in 1840, Detailed Military Chart of the Delta of the Pearl River (Nº22) in 1844, Chart of Macao and Nearby Regions (Nº10) drawn by a Englishman in 1780, Chart of the Distribution of Guangzhou and the Delta of the Pearl River (Nº21) in 1844, Map of the Relations Among Guangzhou, Macao and the Delta (Nº25) in 1880, Chart of Nearby Rivers of Guangzhou (Nº8) drawn by a Frenchman in 1760, etc.. All these old maps in the categories of traffic, military field, or tourism, mirror the cognition and the degree of study of modern western surveyors towards the nature and geographical style and features of the Orient, and their orderly description and explanations towards various phenomena of the objects of study as well.
In this exhibition, a batch of old maps published in China is also exhibited, which there is Map of Guangdong published in the 5th year of Tongzhi reign, Qing Dynasty (in 1866). This set of maps covered the regions like Xiangshan, Xinning, Xinhui, Shunde, Heshan, etc., and Macao was drawn on the 11th volume Map of Xiangshan, where some places of Macao like Porta do Cerco, Ilha Verde, Jitou, Taipa, Jiu’ao, Guoluhua and Shizimen were marked. In spite of the long history of mapping in China and the long tradition of geographical research, the comparatively closed-door geographical position (China lies in the east part of the Asian continent, facing the Pacific in the east, with deserts in the Northwest and forests and valleys in the Southwest.) affected Chinese geographical opinions: “the Heaven is above, the earth is below, China lies in the middle. Beside the centre are four foreign parts. They are outside while China is inside.”5
When modern western geography had developed rapidly, the Chinese geography was still in its original level. Though the Jesuit Matteaus Ricci who came to China at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and his followers like Julius Aleni, Didacus de Pantojoa, Nicolaus Longobardi, Ferdinand Verbiest, took new western geographical knowledge to China, the evolution of Chinese space-geographical concept was rather slow and the ideology of Round Heaven and Square Earth was deep-rooted as before, which can be proved by the Map of Guangdong. As a modern famous geographic Tan Qixiang points: “the study of geography of the Qing Dynasty is but an old summary, and it cannot become a new beginning.”6
Macao is a city with particular historical experiences where oriental and occidental civilizations coexist; modern occidental civilization enters the Orient and exerts far-reaching influences. What the achievements in mapping reflect is not simply the superiority or inferiority in techniques, but the degrees of human’s pursuit of geographical environments and their changing laws, as well as those of human’s cognition towards nature and themselves. These exhibited maps in modern or ancient times, in China or elsewhere, undoubtedly provide a new angle for us to study and know about Macao’s history.
Notes:
1. Chen Lemin, Chronology of Portuguese Communications with China in the 16th Century, Liaoning Educational Publishing House, 2000, p.34.
2. Qianlong reins, The Annals of Xiangshan County, Vol. I, Mountain.
3. Chen Yuemin, Chronology of Portuguese Communications with China in the 16th Century, Liaoning Educational Publishing House, 2000, p.1.
4. Zou Zhenhua, Western Geography of the Late Qing Dynasty in China. Shanghai Ancient-Books Publishing House, 2000, p.34.
5. Shi Jie, About China, in Collected Works of Mr. Shi, Chinese
Publishing House, 1984, Page 116. Quoted from a secondary source Western Geography of the Late Qing Dynasty in China, p.40.
6. Tan Qixiang, Corpus of the Works on Geography of the Qing Dynasty, Volume 1, Zhejiang People’s Publishing House, and edition in 1986, Page 2. Quoted from a secondary source Western Geography of the Late Qing Dynasty in China, p.309.
Chan Vai Hang
President of Macao’s History Institute
At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese sailed to the Orient and established regular navigation lines connecting the Atlantic with the Indian Ocean. In the 16th century, they arrived in the Pacific Ocean and the Far East, which thereby revealed the prelude to the modern communications with the oriental civilization.
“It was a great historical process (…) a traffic used for colonisation and commerce led to culture communications. When Colombo first sailed, no one could imagine what the world history would be like afterwards. At that time, Western Europe had walked out of the middle Ages, and a new culture characterised by humanism and rationalism was growing; as a new system, capitalism was developing and showing its force to the world along with the expansion of colonialism. While this civilisation was totally unrelated with that of Confucianism-advocating Chinese politics, culture and ethics. The 16th century heralded the inevitability of the meeting of oriental and occidental civilisations, for the history had been preparing for the event. Several navigation (such as the Chinese Zheng He’s, the Europeans Colombo’s, Magallance’s, Gama’s, etc) gave an impetus beyond all doubt to the movement of the collision points between the two civilizations.”1
During the period of the convergence of modern oriental and occidental civilisations, various natural sciences departed from natural philosophy and maintained independence. The 19th century was the time when a new geography replaced the western classical one. Geography, as a branch of study, covering the fields of humanism and natural science, exercised more and more deep-going influences over the process of human civilisation.
All these mentioned above could be proved by the maps of Macao from the 18th century to the 20th century, collected by Mr. Tam Siu Cheong, a map collector of Hong Kong.
For example, the illustration (Nº5) of Entering Macao Along the Sea Route, published in England in 1738, was drawn delicately to show how to arrive in KANTAN (Guangzhong) through MA-KAU (Macao) and Humen along the waterway, by marking the depth of water of every route, which reflected the contemporary mature mapping and surveying techniques of the West.
On the left of this chart, there is a concise map of Guangzhou, on which the Pearl River and the Guangzhou City were clearly marked out.
Another illustration about Macao CARTE SE L’ENTRE DE MACAO (Nº11-3) is a chart of waterway, drawn by a Frenchman in the 18th century. Since Macao was the unique city opening to the outside world, its conditions were described in detail on the map, especially that of the ancient waterway, Shizimen (Crossdoor) in the south of the Peninsula of Macao. As the waterway was the only way for the western and eastern merchant ships to moor and get out and into Macao, its depth of water was marked more detailed than that of the Peninsula. This chart is a practical navigation map.
The early maps of Macao published by the West were tinted with remarkably practical flavour.
Another illustration of the same book (Nº11-1) PLAN DE LA VILLE DE MACAO shows thoroughly the conditions of the Peninsula of Macao at the end of the 18th century: Portuguese lived in the Peninsula from the foot of Collin de Penha in the south to the city gate of Rua do Campo in the north, where were thickly dotted with houses. While the region to the south of Colina da Penha including Colina de Barra was still in a natural state, with criss-crossed fields and villages. The area to the north of the city gate of Rua do Campo was mainly inhabited by Chinese, and in its centre was pieces of farmland. Ilha Verde and ancient Istmo Ferreira do Amaral became important symbols to identify the boundary of the city, which corresponded to the contemporary annals: “the Mount of Macao lies 120 miles to the east of the Southeast of Macao, opposite to the city in the east, surrounded in the south by the tidewater of Shizimen, facing Hengqin in the west and next to the mount of Qingzhou in the north.”2
The map TOWN AND HARBOUR OF MACAO (Nº24) drawn by hand by a Englishman in 1867 is also about the Peninsula of Macao, but there are some comparatively notable changes: one is the disappearance of the city wall of Rua do Campo, demolished by Portuguese; the other refers to the expansion of the city towards the north under the governance of Portuguese, which happened after the Event of Ferreira do Amaral in 1849: Portuguese refused to pay to Xiangshan County the land rent that had been collected for more than 270 years, what’s more, they pulled down the city wall in order to enlarge the city and to expand towards the north.
Another map of the Peninsula of Macao is the illustration THE PORTUGUESE SETTLEMENT MACAO (Nº27) published in 1849. On the left upper corner is written “Established in 1557”, but what this map actually shows is that the Portuguese seized villages, destroyed fields and built roads in the north after they forcibly occupied the Peninsula: apart from the streets thoroughly marked on the map, the old churches like the St. Francisco Church, the Ruins of St. Paul, the position of the old fort set up in the Ming Dynasty and the outward appearance of the Governor’s Mansion Santa Sancha were also drawn on it. Even the fort of Colina de Mong Ha and Flora Palace constructed in the late Qing Dynasty were marked, too. Carefully observing this map, one can find that Estrada de Adolfo de Loureiro was built, that the such streets as Estrada do Coelho do Amaral, Estrada da Bela Vista e Istmo Ferreira do Amaral had took shapes and was afforested with trees. It is an important map reflecting the actual conditions of Macao in the late Qing Dynasty.
“In the 16th century, some foreigners that Chinese never knew appeared from time to time in the southern coast land of China and came in unequal numbers every time and more and more frequently. They were Europeans who came to China following Marco Polo.” “The Ming Dynasty knew nothing about what changes had happened in the remote West. West Europe had stepped in modern times under the impetus given by the Renaissance, religious reform and the experimental science. The navigational career prospered abruptly along with geographical discoveries and connected the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.”3
The westerners put their modern scientific techniques to use to record and study the East. “In modern science, geography is a branch of study with multifarious and disorder contents. Until the 19th century, the modern geography gradually cast off the state of semi-science and semi-literature, began to absorb the achievements of modern science and formed a set of working patterns of its own.”4 In this exhibition, there also are CHINESISCHE KUSTE (Nº17) drawn by a German in 1834, Sea Chart of Guangdong and the Delta of the Pearl River (Nº18) in 1840, Detailed Military Chart of the Delta of the Pearl River (Nº22) in 1844, Chart of Macao and Nearby Regions (Nº10) drawn by a Englishman in 1780, Chart of the Distribution of Guangzhou and the Delta of the Pearl River (Nº21) in 1844, Map of the Relations Among Guangzhou, Macao and the Delta (Nº25) in 1880, Chart of Nearby Rivers of Guangzhou (Nº8) drawn by a Frenchman in 1760, etc.. All these old maps in the categories of traffic, military field, or tourism, mirror the cognition and the degree of study of modern western surveyors towards the nature and geographical style and features of the Orient, and their orderly description and explanations towards various phenomena of the objects of study as well.
In this exhibition, a batch of old maps published in China is also exhibited, which there is Map of Guangdong published in the 5th year of Tongzhi reign, Qing Dynasty (in 1866). This set of maps covered the regions like Xiangshan, Xinning, Xinhui, Shunde, Heshan, etc., and Macao was drawn on the 11th volume Map of Xiangshan, where some places of Macao like Porta do Cerco, Ilha Verde, Jitou, Taipa, Jiu’ao, Guoluhua and Shizimen were marked. In spite of the long history of mapping in China and the long tradition of geographical research, the comparatively closed-door geographical position (China lies in the east part of the Asian continent, facing the Pacific in the east, with deserts in the Northwest and forests and valleys in the Southwest.) affected Chinese geographical opinions: “the Heaven is above, the earth is below, China lies in the middle. Beside the centre are four foreign parts. They are outside while China is inside.”5
When modern western geography had developed rapidly, the Chinese geography was still in its original level. Though the Jesuit Matteaus Ricci who came to China at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and his followers like Julius Aleni, Didacus de Pantojoa, Nicolaus Longobardi, Ferdinand Verbiest, took new western geographical knowledge to China, the evolution of Chinese space-geographical concept was rather slow and the ideology of Round Heaven and Square Earth was deep-rooted as before, which can be proved by the Map of Guangdong. As a modern famous geographic Tan Qixiang points: “the study of geography of the Qing Dynasty is but an old summary, and it cannot become a new beginning.”6
Macao is a city with particular historical experiences where oriental and occidental civilizations coexist; modern occidental civilization enters the Orient and exerts far-reaching influences. What the achievements in mapping reflect is not simply the superiority or inferiority in techniques, but the degrees of human’s pursuit of geographical environments and their changing laws, as well as those of human’s cognition towards nature and themselves. These exhibited maps in modern or ancient times, in China or elsewhere, undoubtedly provide a new angle for us to study and know about Macao’s history.
Notes:
1. Chen Lemin, Chronology of Portuguese Communications with China in the 16th Century, Liaoning Educational Publishing House, 2000, p.34.
2. Qianlong reins, The Annals of Xiangshan County, Vol. I, Mountain.
3. Chen Yuemin, Chronology of Portuguese Communications with China in the 16th Century, Liaoning Educational Publishing House, 2000, p.1.
4. Zou Zhenhua, Western Geography of the Late Qing Dynasty in China. Shanghai Ancient-Books Publishing House, 2000, p.34.
5. Shi Jie, About China, in Collected Works of Mr. Shi, Chinese
Publishing House, 1984, Page 116. Quoted from a secondary source Western Geography of the Late Qing Dynasty in China, p.40.
6. Tan Qixiang, Corpus of the Works on Geography of the Qing Dynasty, Volume 1, Zhejiang People’s Publishing House, and edition in 1986, Page 2. Quoted from a secondary source Western Geography of the Late Qing Dynasty in China, p.309.
