Geography at the Intersection of the East and the West: A French Jesuit Traveller's Maps of Seventeenth-Century Vietnam

The French Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes (1593–1660) is one of the best-known early missionary travellers in Asia. Having spent more than 15 years in Macau and Vietnam, de Rhodes was well acquainted with both Eastern and Western sciences. To accompany his travel narratives, de Rhodes produced two very different maps of Vietnam, which then comprised the kingdoms of Tonkin and Cochinchina. These maps represent the first Western single maps of Vietnam that profoundly influenced the European vision of the country. This paper aims to identify the Eastern and Western sources of de Rhodes' maps, and to evaluate the Jesuit contribution to the textual and visual imaginary of pre-colonial Vietnam. The reading of de Rhodes' work is based on a comparative analysis of his maps, narratives and other writings, thus applying an interdisciplinary approach to the study of map history.KEY HIGHLIGHTSExamines how state-sponsored Jesuit science was used as a tool of French imperialism, and how Jesuit travel narratives and maps influenced European perceptions of othersClaims that de Rhodes’ 1650 and 1653 maps were the first European maps of Vietnam, revealing an interpretive turn in the understanding of the visual imagery of pre-colonial VietnamShows atypical Jesuit maps that depict Vietnam's political division, reflecting Vietnamese military campaigns and prefigure French IndochinaHighlights mapping at the intersection of Eastern and Western knowledge, identifying the Vietnamese discourse within the European mapPlaces territory as a major scientific subject of observation to support expansionism