1901 Maunsell Map of Kurdistan (Southeastern Turkey)

This is a 1901 Francis Richard Maunsell map of central Kurdistan, in what is today the southeastern part of modern-day Turkey. Depicting the region south and east of Lake Van, the area's complex topography is illustrated in detail. Its many streams and two major rivers, the Bohtan and the Great Zab, are identified and mountain peaks are labeled. Inhabited mostly by nomads, the few settlements located here are identified, while the larger city of Van is illustrated along the eastern banks of Lake Van. An inset of the Jelu Range, which makes up the southern portion of the depicted region, is situated in the upper right corner. A glossary of local names used on the map is included below the title along the bottom border. Maunsell was serving in the British Consulate at Van when he created this piece.

Kurdistan

Maunsell's description of Kurdistan in the July 6, 1893 edition of Nature,

Kurdistan is not an accurately defined province but may be described as the extensive district inhabited by the Kurds, embracing the region of Lake Van and the Upper Euphrates, as well as the country between the Tigris and the Persian frontier south of Lake Van. Captain Maunsell entered Kurdistan from the north passing Erzingan and Erzerum, and skirted the eastern shore of Lake Van. The watershed between the lake and the Tigris Valley is very low, but it is not easy to discover any place at which there might at some former time have been an outlet. It seems not unlikely that a lava overflow from the volcano Mount Nimrud, on the western shore of the lake, cut off the plain of Van from the Tigris and thus formed the lake Captain Maunsell descended to the Tigris, and followed that river to its mouth, making excursions into the mountainous country to the east. Only in southern Kurdistan is the population exclusively Kurdish. North of Mosul there is a considerable Christian element.

Not many years ago Kurdistan was a separate province ruled over by Kurdish beys, whose strongholds were Amadia Rawanduz, Sulaimanie, and other places. But all this is changed, and the country is now under the direct control of Turkish officials. The original Kurdish organization was tribal, and the prevailing habits of the tribes are still nomadic and pastoral, but have been modified by local conditions. Thus, the Kurds of the mountainous district north of Lake Van remain in villages all through the severe winter, the great distance being a bar to migration into a warmer plain country. In the summer, however, they leave their village dwellings for their tents, which they often pitch close to their winter home. In the rugged Dersim country the Kurds are perforce sedentary. In central and southern Kurdistan the tribes have easy access to the Mesopotamian plain, and a large number of them live in tents all the year round.

This was from Maunsell's first great voyage through Kurdistan. He would return again in 1901, by then a Colonel, compiling a more detailed study of the region and publishing additional maps.

British Mapping in Eastern Turkey and the Caucuses

Following the British intervention on behalf of the Ottoman Empire in the 1877 Russo Turkish, it became apparent that the British Empire lacked significant reconnaissance data on Eastern Turkey. Anticipating further Russian incursion into the region, which they considered to be under their sphere of influence, British intelligence sent a series of expeditions into the Eastern Anatolian borderlands, now part of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. Although ostensibly allies, the Ottomans had a very real fear that they would be annexed by the British, who showed such tendencies in other parts of the world. Thus, intelligence operatives were sent under the guise of political attachés, ethnographers, and archeologists. Maunsell was one of these remarking individuals. Living a peripatetic existence, traveling from place to place throughout Kurdistan, armed with a Hadley 6-inch sextant, a telescope, a half chronometer, and two barometers, he produced the most meticulous map of Kurdistan yet seen - the present map. He returned to the region in the early 20th century to complete larger additional surveys.

Publication History and Census

This map was created by Francis Richard Maunsell to accompany an article entitled 'Central Kurdistan' that was published in The Geographical Journal by the Royal Geographical Society in August 1901. The article put forward an in-depth description of the region, including the terrain and its people and their customs. One example is catalogued in the OCLC and it is part of the institutional collection at The British Library.