1895 Sagano Map of Taiwan, Japanese Colonization

A scarce map of Taiwan, prepared and published by Sagano Hikotarō in 1895, as Japanese forces occupied the island and suppressed resistance.

A Closer Look

The island of Taiwan or Formosa is presented with significant detail on terrain, settlements, administration, infrastructure, and the island's economy. Many placenames are rendered in Japanese kana rather than kanji, either because their name in Chinese characters was unknown to Sagano or because the name was based on an Aboriginal word. Given Japan's military operation to establish control over the island, military installations such as fortifications and barracks are labeled (over the course of August 1895, Japanese troops advanced down the island's western coast from Hsinchu 新竹 to Changhua 彰化, near Taiwan-fu). Telegraph lines (including an underground cable to Penghu), railways, and roads are labeled, along with ports, lighthouses, and coal mines.

Six insets surround the map, which cover, clockwise from top-right: Dong'ao Bay (here as 蘇澳灣) on Taiwan's east coast, a map of East Asia highlighting Japan's possessions, the Hengchun Peninsula (here as 春地方), Takow Bay (now Kaohsiung), which was home to a British and German Consulate, the port at Tamsui (near Taipei), and Keelung. Scales in Japanese ri, Chinese li, and 'French' kilometers appear at bottom.

Japan's Occupation of Taiwan

Japanese forces invaded Taiwan in May 1895, after it was ceded to them by Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 17, 1895) at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894 - 1895). The occupation of Taiwan fit into Imperial Japan's Nanshin-ron (南進論) or Southern Expansion Doctrine, which argued that Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines were essential to Japan's economic survival and territorial growth. Katsura Taro (1747 - 1913), a Yamaguchi Samurai, wrote of Taiwan's significance, 'It is not only the most ideal location for expanding power to southern China, but also the islands in Southeast Asia.' Although there were some indigenous attempts at resistance and self-governance, including the founding of the 'Republic of Formosa,' arguably Asia's first republic, the Japanese were quickly able to suppress organized opposition, though guerilla warfare would continue for several years. In less than six months, Japanese forces achieved, with the arguable exception of the tribal central highlands, full control of the island. Taiwan was Japan's first major extraterritorial holding, and Imperial Japan worked diligently to transform it into a 'model colony.' Japan lavished resources on the island's economy, including public works and industrial development, while also pursuing cultural Japanization.

Taiwan at the Peripheries of Empires

Due to its strategic location and proximity to the Chinese mainland, Taiwan has been eyed by foreign powers for much of the past four centuries. The island's early indigenous inhabitants had minimal interaction with Chinse culture until the Ming, when larger numbers of traders, fishermen, settlers, and pirates operated on or along the coast facing Fujian. Europeans also appeared in the early 17th century, with both the Dutch and Spanish building forts. However, the main power in the Taiwan Straits remained prominent families of traders and officials from Fujian, especially the Zheng family, who controlled trade routes in the Straits stretching as far as Japan and Southeast Asia.

By the Ming's collapse in 1644, the Zhengs had evolved their operation into the Zheng Ministry (鄭部), a quasi-state led by the dynamic but reckless Zheng Chenggong (鄭成功 1624 - 1662, known in European sources as Koxinga or Coxinga). Zheng captured the Dutch Fort Zeelandia, refused to acknowledge the Qing, and even launched an attack on Nanjing, but was driven back to Taiwan, which the Qing eventually captured in 1683. Unsure of what to do with the island, the Qing evacuated most of the Chinese population and ruled it at arm's length, but Chinese migration increased throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and officials in Beijing viewed it as an annoyance and a sort of lawless frontier. By the time of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894 - 1895), settlers from the Chinese mainland who lived on the west side of the island far outnumbered the aboriginal population to the east. Although a border embankment (traced here and labeled as 蕃地界 in the legend) had been established to separate the two communities (mainly to protect aborigines from attack and exploitation by Chinese settlers and to prevent Chinese settlers from fleeing to aboriginal areas to shirk their taxes), the boundaries between them remained fluid.

Japan's Growing Clout in East Asia

The background to Japan's occupation of Taiwan can be dated to the Meiji Restoration (1868). Recognizing that one of the common elements among all foreign powers was colonies, the leaders of the Meiji Restoration set their eyes on building up both an informal and formal empire in East Asia. As a distant and often-ignored vassal state of the Qing, the Ryukyu Kingdom was an obvious place to begin imperial expansion. Taiwan was likewise an enticing option. Though a part of the Qing empire, the Japanese rightly determined that the Qing were not especially interested in the island. By the time the Qing court recognized the problems that foreign rule of Taiwan would cause, it was already too late.

Following the Opium Wars, and especially after the Japanese established a de facto protectorate over the Ryukyu Islands in 1872 and launched a military expedition to Taiwan in 1874, the Qing recognized the vulnerabilities that would be created if Taiwan were captured by foreign powers (the French also tried to invade Taiwan in 1884). They established more direct administration of the island, eventually making it a province in 1887, and appointed a modernizer, Liu Mingchuan (劉銘傳), as governor. Liu oversaw the construction of schools, fortifications, and a railway, completed in 1893, seen here connecting Keelung (基隆), Taipei (臺北), and Hsinchu (新竹), with surveying completed on a further extension. It was planned to continue to Taiwan-fu (臺灣 that is, Taichung) and Tainan, but was not completed before Liu had to leave Taiwan for health reasons. After colonizing Taiwan, Japan went on a railway building spree, finishing the western coastal route and building many narrow-gauge routes to mines in the hills around Taipei and Keelung.

Publication History and Census

This map was edited and published by Sagano Hikotarō (嵯峨野彦太郎) in August 1895 (Meiji 28). It is quite scarce, being noted among the holdings of the University of California Berkeley, the National Diet Library, National Taiwan University, and the National Museum of Taiwan History.