Jean-Baptiste du Halde (杜赫德; February 1, 1674 – August 18, 1743) was a French Jesuit historian and geographer. Although he was not part of the Jesuits' China mission, he did collect letters, memoirs, and other information from the Jesuits in China to publish the work Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political, and Physical Description of the Empire of China and Chinese Tartary in 1735, which had a significant influence throughout Europe for decades afterwards. Among those it inspired was Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, who used du Halde's descriptions (based on a land survey under the Kangxi Emperor that the Jesuits were involved in) to draw his famous map of China, which was the gold standard in Europe into the 19th century.



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