2016, Vol.16, No.2

Journal of the Korean Cartographic Association 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.34

pISSN : 1598-6160
https://journal.kci.go.kr/jkca

The purpose of this study is to investigate the geographical information of Northern Territory in late Joseon Period through Old Western Maps and Huang chao yi tong yu di quan tu. Firstly, the types of borderline between Joseon and China represented in Old western maps were analysed. Throughout the eighteenth century, maps remained inaccurate with regards to actual political control in regions of Gando. So these maps have serious problems for use in territory sovereignty claim. Secondly, Huang chao yi tong yu di quan tu was used by China for the Tomun and Duman to be same river in 1885 Border meetings. But it was used by Lee Jung-Ha for the argument that the source of Dumangang was Hongtosu in 1887 meetings. Now Hongtosu is the border line between China and North Korea. In conclusion, the old map should be objectively and throughly investigated to be used for the claiming of the Territorial Sovereignty over northern territory.

Unlike other Jeju Island maps, the wood-block printed 「Tamna jido」 has direction line drawn centering on Hallasan Mountain and rectangular grid, and thus has drawn the attention of the academia since early on. From what is specified on the map, 「Tamna jido」 is presumed to have been produced between 1706 and 1716. The overall coastal boundaries and expression techniques, etc. are similar to 1709 「Tamna jido byeongseo」, and is regarded as a map of the same kind. The map is accompanied by texts, comprised of topographical relations, islands, and famous places of Jeju Island. 「Tamna jido」 employs grid method and direction line method. The grid method comes from China, and aims at clarifying the distance relations, and the direction line method intends to express the topographical relations to neighboring countries accurately. The direction line method is a rare case that is hard to find in ancient maps of China or Korea. The direction line method is similar to portolan charts of the West, but it appears that it had not been used for actual voyage navigation.

The study argues that the survey results and maps made around the coastline of the Korean peninsula during the imperialist expansion process in the Far East of Russia are known to European maps, which was the most accurate geographical information that far. After the Beijing Treaty and the Vladivostok port construction in 1860, Russia determined to create an organized military maps of the Far East, this task was systematically done after 1884 through Korea-Russia Patron Treaty. Nineteen map sheets with scale of 1: 420,000 were drawn around the Korean peninsula, which task ended abruptly after the defeat of Russo-Japanese War in 1905. The most large-scale maps at that the time are to be propagated into the European community, which is responsible for delivering the most detailed geographical information on the Korean peninsula.