1858 Milne / Becker Map of Ningbo, China

An important c. 1858 map of Ningbo, China by William C. Milne, published in the French translation of his book Life in China, one of the earliest Western maps of the city. Though a long-established port that Europeans had visited as early as 1520, Ningbo had undergone significant changes since the First Opium War (1839 - 1842), after which it became a Treaty Port.

A Closer Look

Oriented towards the north, this map covers the walled city of Ningbo and its environs ('faubourgs') in the late 1840s and early 1850s, when Milne was in residence. Situated along the confluence of the Yong, Yuyao, and Fenghua Rivers, Ningbo's long history as a port and point of foreign interaction is reflected in the cityscape, which includes Chinese Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian, and folk religion temples, a mosque, a Buddhist nunnery, a Protestant missionary girls boarding school, and both Catholic and Protestant churches. Old European trading posts (factories) within the city walls are also noted, dating to the 16th century, when Portuguese actively traded along the coast of Zhejiang. Important civic structures are also labeled, such as a drum tower near the center of the walled city, the city gates, and the imperial examination hall. Around the walled city, suburbs, villages, graveyards, lumber yards, and other features are recorded. The most noticeable of these are the foreign consulates and factories to the north of the walled city (today's Jiangbei District), which appeared in the aftermath of the First Opium War.

Seaside City, Cosmopolitan Crossroads

Since the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907 CE), Ningbo has been an important international port, connecting China with ports in Southeast Asia and beyond. In addition to a significant population of traders from the Islamic World, there was even a Jewish community in Ningbo in the early Ming Dynasty, if not much earlier. During the First Opium War, British troops captured the walled city and fought off a Qing counter-attack. Ningbo was selected as one of the five treaty ports opened to foreign trade by the Treaty of Nanjing, which ended the Opium War. The opening of Ningbo to international trade attracted merchants and missionaries from various countries, especially Anglo-American Protestants. Economically, Ningbo became a center for exporting tea, silk, and porcelain, and importing opium and other foreign goods.

Publication History and Census

This map was originally engraved by L. M. Becker for the first English edition of Milne's Life in China, published in 1857. Little is known of Becker, but he must have been an associate of Milne in China, possibly another missionary. The present map is a 'fresh' engraving (evidenced, for example, by the lines in the Yong River, which are horizontal in the English-language edition and vertical here), printed by Imprimerie Bineteau for the first French edition of Milne's book (La vie réelle en Chine), published by Hachette in 1858. The map is individually cataloged among the holdings of Leiden University and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in the OCLC, while the entire book is more widely distributed in institutional collections.