The Great Geographical Surveying And Mapping In The Late Qing Dynasty: A Study Centered On Guangxu's "Huidian Map"

It's a new research direction to collect information on historical geography from modern surveyed maps in quantitative and high-resolution approach. However, little attention was paid on methods and works of mapping in late Qing dynasty by the western technology oriented paradigm, which not only puts obstacles in the way to clarify the development of modern cartography in late Qing dynasty but also sets troubles for the further utilization of surveyed maps. In perspective of development of traditional cartography, this study makes a detailed discussion on background, preparation, and implementation of the largest mapping in late Qing dynasty whose results were atlas kept in Guang-xu Huidian (the Qing Code in the Guang-xu period of the Qing dynasty), and gets conclusions in the following.Firstly, traditional maps and gazetteers were actually excluded from the process of border dispute because of their defects on place name localization which caused excessive territory ceding during events of border crisis in Tong-zhi and Guang-xu period of the Qing dynasty. The compilation of Guang-xu Huidian provided an opportunity for officials, who were greatly influenced by thoughts of Zhong Ti Xi Xue (to study only western technology and subjected to Confucianism), to rebuild the authority of official maps and gazetteers.Secondly, by the establishment of mapping agencies and the promulgation of regulations, comparatively unified mapping standards were made and many intellectuals familiar with mapping skills were interested in the flexible employment mechanism and promotion opportunities. By the way of job transfer and exams, Huidian Guan (the agency to compile the Qing Code) gathered many skilled staffs which brought gradually promotion of mapping standards accompanied with increase of mapping knowledge. However, such standards cannot be reached in several provinces and some provinces asked to delay. After the event of Hong Jun, who was impeached for his translation mistakes causing territory loss, the mapping standards became to original ones in order to avoid possible risks.Thirdly, however, the drawing of huidian yutu(????)is back to the previous, the yutu(??)of provinces that present to huidian guan(???)are still need to according the rule of mapping. Because of the exact of the map's result and the rewards and penalties of the huidian guan(???),except some provinces which present the yutu(??)more early, all of the other provinces' yutu(??) make some changes and even overfulfil the request of the xuban zhangcheng(????)Making a triangular surveying and a measure of longitude and latitude; drawing the general plan of tangent conical projection; surveying the topography and so on. For the high request of technology, most of the provinces abandon the way of traditional drawing in the technology, and instead to found a yutu ju(???),engage some professionals from Jiangsu province, Zhejiang province, Hunan province and shuilushi xuetang(?????), produce or buy measuring instruments, cultivate workers to finish mapping. The technology has been change to emphasize ce(?),while as liang(?)in tradition, and it can control the error band. There are some provinces, that is Hubei, Jiangxi, and Anhui, to use the measuring instruments to measure longitude and latitude. And most of provinces can master the drawing of conic projection, even some provinces to use line work off drawing to draw the map.At last, it is shows that, based on analysis of compilation of Guangxu Huidian Yutu(??????),westernization of modern Chinese Cartology was not only applied to the model of import through translation and Westernization Movement; but also with the absorbing western mapping technique, which is one of the developing routes of Chinese Cartology, to improve traditional Chinese Cartology while dealing with some practical issues like territorial disputes. During late qing dynasty, Qingliu group(???) who hold an opinion of "zhong ti xi xue"(????)had an more profound influence on westernization of traditional Chinese Cartology than the westernization group. Moreover, with the suffocated and degraded compilation of Huidian Yutu, it was been increasingly hard for traditional temporary guanshu(??)compilation to adjust to new condition. Official map compilation involves more expertise and has more vital function, which needs to establish long-term institute with surveying technique and perform foundational surveying on entire country. The change of surveying technique and organization provincially indicated that we had underestimated the achievement of Cartology in late Ding Dynasty, meanwhile, it also proved the feasibility of extracting historical geographic information accurately and potential of further development.