1895 Japanese Map of Taiwan

An attractive and historically important early map of Taiwan or Formosa drawn shortly after the island was sized by Japanese forces at the beginning of the First Sino-Japanese War (August 1, 1894 – April 17, 1895). After occupying the Taiwan, the Japanese government quickly dispatched surveyors to properly assess and map their new territory. The maps that immediately followed these surveys were a cartographic attempt to assimilate Taiwan into the expanding Japanese Empire. They also profess to the extreme popular interest among Japanese citizens in the occupied lands. The present map covers the entirety of Taiwan as well as the nearby Pescadores (Penghu Islands) and Fujian Coast (China). Despite large print runs often associated with major Japanese news publishers, few of this initial wave of Japanese Taiwan maps survive today and are, as a class, quite rare.