![]() ![]() Chinese annals describe it: Mountains and rivers changed places and roads were destroyed. As many as 830,000 Chinese living in loess caves (yaodongs) on high cliffs were killed as the earthquake initiated a horrific cascade of landslides and floods. The 1556 quake has been estimated at magnitude 8. The story appears to refer to the great 1556 Shaanxi Earthquake - in the aftermath of which there were massive flooding and landslides. Text refers to the picture: This round lake in the province of Sancii was made by a flood in the year 1557, during which seven cities were submerged, as well as towns and villages, and a very great number of dead people were the result, except for one boy only, who was saved by means of a tree trunk. In Shaanxi province (Sancii) is shown a round lake with a figure afloat in it, in a prayerful pose. Portuguese Sources and the 1556 Shaanxi EarthquakeThe map's Portuguese sources record, through a gauze of error, the deadliest earthquake in human history. The verso text contains the first western printed representation of Chinese characters. This map contains the first depiction of wind wagons, the sight of which astonished European travelers visiting in the 16th century, but which the Chinese are recorded of having employed as early as the 6th century. Though presented impressively, enclosing the whole northern border of China, the wall's size is grossly underestimated in the attendant note: A wall of four hundred miles has been constructed between the edges of the mountains by the king of China against the invasions of the Tartars in this part. It is the first to depict the Great Wall of China. Suarez in his Early Mapping of Southeast Asia posits that this depiction derives not from reports of Spanish ships arriving from the east (as did Magellan), but from Portuguese ships arriving from the west and keeping to the coast en route to China. It was, as of the second state of the map in 1587, the first map to name the Philippine Archipelago, though only Mindanao and the southern shores of Cebu are shown: further expanses of hypothetical 'island' are roughed in, but Luzon does not appear. It is the first map of China to appear in a modern, uniform atlas. An Array of FirstsThis is the first printed European map specifically of China (not named on the 1522 Fries, which was the first to show the area overall). The map is visually unique, with its western orientation and abundant decorative elements. Based ultimately on reports of Portuguese missionaries, Ortelius' map would not be substantially improved upon until those of Martino Martini (卫匡国 1614-1661) were produced in 1655. It appears here in a beautiful, original-color example of a 1602 Vrients edition. This is Abraham Ortelius' 1584 map of China, the first specific map of China to appear in an atlas. Minnesota - North Dakota - South Dakota.Massachusetts - Connecticut - Rhode Island. ![]()
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