Reimagining Qing Space: Yongzheng’s Eurasian Atlas (1727–29)

A series of unusually large atlases produced by and for the Qing court during the eighteenth century reflect the court's growing desire for new representations of its imperial space as it projected its power and influence into Inner and Central Asia. The first of these, printed in several editions at the end of the Kangxi period (1662-1722), followed empire-wide land surveys covering the Manchu homelands up to the Amur River, all of the Chinese provinces, and the lands of the Khalkha Mongols, as well as depicting (largely unsurveyed) Korea, Tibet, and parts of what we today call Xinjiang. The production of a significantly reworked version under the Yongzheng emperor (r. 1723-35) radically expanded the Kangxi-era atlas's geographical scope without ordering new surveys, incorporating areas far beyond the Qing regime's reach: the entire Junghar and Russian Empires from Kamchatka to Riga and down to the Black Sea (Figure Versions from the Qianlong reign (1735-96) revised the Yongzheng atlas's depictions of Inner Asia -based upon limited new surveys -and extended its scope to incorporate the Northern Subcontinent and parts of the Arabian Peninsula. 1 * I thank Juul Eijk and Fresco Sam-Sin at Leiden University for their help with the Manchu language; Zhang Xinyu and Song Hanxiao, students at the University of Macau, for their practical assistance in arranging source materials; and John Cirilli and Elke Papelitzky for their help with the final text.