Daedong yeojido (Map of the Great East) (1985)

This is the copy of Daedong yeojido (Map of the Great East) held in the Sungshin Women's University Museum, one of several surviving editions of the map. Made in 1861, the twelfth year of King Cheoljong, by Kim Jeong-ho (dates of birth and death unknown), who used the pen name Gosanja, the map represents the culmination of cartographic development in Joseon and is regarded as the finest of Korea's old maps. The country was divided from north to south into 22 sections and produced in an accordion-fold album format (buncheop jeolcheopsik), so that when all the sections are joined together from top to bottom they form a single map of the whole country. The first section contains a grid scale, a legend called the jidopyo (map key) together with an essay titled Jidoyuseol (Discourse on Maps), a five-part map of the capital region, and maps of Onseong, Jongseong and Gyeongwon, the northernmost places in Joseon. The Jidoyuseol discusses the origins of Chinese maps and geographical records and reviews their historical importance, states that maps and geographical records are indispensable in every field, from politics and economy to national defence and scholarship, sets out this purpose behind the map's compilation, and presents accurate principles of measurement for making maps. Each page within a section covers 80 li east to west and 120 li north to south (a li being a traditional unit of distance). Each woodblock carries two pages, engraved on both sides, and it is estimated that around 70 woodblocks in all were used to produce the map. When all 22 sections are joined together they form a large map measuring about 6.7 m from north to south and 3.8 m from east to west, at a scale of roughly 1:160,000. The coastline and islands, the relief of mountains and rivers, and the local counties and districts are drawn to closely resemble their actual appearance, and along the roads linking counties and districts, dots are marked every 10 li, making it possible to measure the distance between them. Within each county and district, features such as military command posts, county seats, walled towns, garrison forts, storehouses, pasturage stations, beacon-fire stations, royal tombs, villages, former county seats, former garrison forts, old mountain fortresses and roads are all marked. Kim Jeong-ho, who made the map, was a scholar of Silhak (Practical Learning) and a geographer, who devoted his entire life solely to making maps and compiling geographical records. Besides compiling the geographical works Yeodobiji, Dongyeodoji and Daedongjiji, he also produced the maps Cheonggudo (1834) and Daedong yeojido. Daedong yeojido was produced over the course of several years, drawing on earlier maps and on-site surveys, and, unlike the hand-copied maps that had come before it, it was made as a woodblock print, which became the occasion for geographical information to spread widely through society. The map was first printed in 1861, the twelfth year of King Cheoljong, and reprinted in 1864, the first year of Emperor Gojong. The number of copies printed in the first and second editions is not certain, but given that more than 30 copies are now held in institutions in Korea and abroad, it appears to have been produced in considerable numbers. The 19th-century map Daedong yeojijeondo, at a scale of about 1:900,000, was made by reducing this map for wider distribution. Among the copies held by various institutions, the copy in the Sungshin Women's University Museum has a cover of cotton cloth dyed a deep blue, bearing the title Daedong yeojijeondo, which appears to have been added by whoever kept the map. Its first section is arranged in the order: title, Jidoyuseol, statistical tables, road-distance tables, the maps of Gyeongwon, Onseong and Jongseong, the map key, and the five-part capital map. Military command posts, garrison forts, royal tombs and beacon-fire stations are coloured in red, while county seats and post stations are coloured in yellow; where a county seat has a wall built around it, it is marked with a yellow circle outlined in red.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Seongbuk-gu, Seoul

Designation

Treasure · 보물