1887 Tsujimoto Pocket Map of Japan

An impressive 1887 folding pocket map of Japan, edited and published by Tsujimoto Kyūbei. It is notable for highlighting Imperial Japan's acquisitions and territorial claims of the early Meiji period.

A Closer Look

Demonstrating the distinctive coloration of late 19th-century Japanese maps and prints, this work demarcates the prefectures of Japan, which are color-shaded for distinction. Within each prefecture, administrative divisions (districts, 郡) are labeled, along with towns and villages. Mountains, waterways, maritime routes, Shinto shrines, lighthouses, and other features are indicated according to symbols explained in the legend at left.

Six insets surround the map, including (clockwise from top-left): Hokkaido, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, the Ryukyu Islands, the Ogasawara Islands, and Miyakojima (between Okinawa and Taiwan). A table at top lists mountains and their height, lighthouses, coral reefs, and other features, while a table at bottom notes the distance from Tokyo to various prefectures by sea.

Contesting Karafuto

The inclusion of Sakhalin (Karafuto in Japanese) in an inset at top-left is curious, as it had been ceded by Japan to Russia in the 1875 Treaty of St. Petersburg after a period of shared sovereignty. Historically, the island was inhabited by indigenous peoples who maintained contact and trade / tribute with the Chinese Ming and Manchu Qing. But in the 17th century, both Russian and Japanese explorers reached the island and attempted to study its geography and inhabitants. Under the Tokugawa, the Matsumae clan, which administered Hokkaido, nominally controlled the Ainu living in southern Sakhalin, and, in 1807, Japan attempted to claim sovereignty over the island.

When Japan and Russia formalized their relations with the Treaty of Shimoda in 1855, a loose agreement divided Sakhalin between the two countries. But in the aforementioned Treaty of St. Petersburg, Japan ceded its claim over southern Sakhalin in exchange for the Kuril Islands. However, Japan reclaimed Sakhalin's southern half in the Russo-Japanese War (1904 - 1905), and seized all of it during the Russian Revolution before returning the northern half to the Soviet Union in 1925. In the closing days of the World War II (1939 - 1945), the Soviet Union occupied the island's southern half, and it remains Russian territory today. The island's Japanese population evacuated by the end of the Second World War, and those who had not were expelled by the Soviets, but Sakhalin retains a sizable minority of Koreans who were brought (or forced) to the island by Imperial Japan as laborers.

Publication History and Census

This map was edited and published by Tsujimoto Kyūbei (辻本九兵衛) in April 1887 (Meiji 20). It was issued (發兌) by three other Tsujimotos, certainly relatives of Kyūbei, in Osaka, Kyoto (here as 西京), and Tokyo. The map is scarce, only being noted among the holdings of the National Diet Library and the National Institute of Japanese Literature, the latter of which notes a date of October 1887 and was included in the periodical Publication Monthly (出版月評) rather than the separately-issued pocket format seen here.