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Da Ming Hun Yi Tu
The ''Da Ming Hunyi Tu'' (Chinese for the "Amalgamated Map of the Ming Empire") is an extensive Chinese map. It was painted in colour on stiff silk and 386 x 456 cm in size.(Wang et al. 1994:51) The original text was written in Classical Chinese, but on the surviving copy Manchu labels were later superimposed. The surviving copy of the map shows later revisions, and it is uncertain whether it is (or how closely it matches) the original. It is one of the oldest surviving maps from East Asia, although the exact date of creation remains unknown. It depicts Eurasia, placing China in the center and stretching northward to Mongolia, southward to Java, eastward to central Japan, and westward to Europe (including the East African coast as an island). History The map was created sometime during the Ming dynasty and then handed over to the new rulers of China, the Qing. The place names of China on the map reflect the political situation in 1389, or the 22nd year of the reign of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Language
Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the world's population) speak a variety of Chinese as their first language. Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be variants of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered separate languages in a family. Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin (with about 800 million speakers, or 66%), followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shangh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manchu Alphabet
The Manchu alphabet ( mnc, m=, v=manju hergen, a=manju hergen) is the alphabet used to write the now nearly-extinct Manchu language. A similar script is used today by the Xibe people, who speak a language considered either as a dialect of Manchu or a closely related, mutually intelligible language. It is written vertically from top to bottom, with columns proceeding from left to right. History ''Tongki fuka akū hergen'' According to the ' (; ), in 1599 the Jurchen leader Nurhaci decided to convert the Mongolian alphabet to make it suitable for the Manchu people. He decried the fact that while illiterate Han Chinese and Mongolians could understand their respective languages when read aloud, that was not the case for the Manchus, whose documents were recorded by Mongolian scribes. Overriding the objections of two advisors named Erdeni and G'ag'ai, he is credited with adapting the Mongolian script to Manchu. The resulting script was known as () — the "script without dot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; Tigrinya: ቀይሕ ባሕሪ ''Qeyih Bahri''; ) is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal). It is underlain by the Red Sea Rift, which is part of the Great Rift Valley. The Red Sea has a surface area of roughly 438,000 km2 (169,100 mi2), is about 2250 km (1398 mi) long, and — at its widest point — 355 km (220.6 mi) wide. It has an average depth of 490 m (1,608 ft), and in the central ''Suakin Trough'' it reaches its maximum depth of . The Red Sea also has exten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Africa, African countries and territories that are situated fully in that specified region, the term may also include polities that only have part of their territory located in that region, per the definition of the United Nations (UN). This is considered a non-standardized geographical region with the number of countries included varying from 46 to 48 depending on the organization describing the region (e.g. UN, WHO, World Bank, etc.). The Regions of the African Union, African Union uses a different regional breakdown, recognizing all 55 member states on the continent - grouping them into 5 distinct and standard regions. The term serves as a grouping counterpart to North Africa, which is instead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aisin Gioro
The House of Aisin-Gioro was a Manchu clan that ruled the Later Jin dynasty (1616–1636), the Qing dynasty (1636–1912), and Manchukuo (1932–1945) in the history of China. Under the Ming dynasty, members of the Aisin Gioro clan served as chiefs of the Jianzhou Jurchens, one of the three major Jurchen tribes at this time. Qing bannermen passed through the gates of the Great Wall in 1644, conquered the short-lived Shun dynasty and the Southern Ming dynasty. The Qing dynasty later expanded into other adjacent regions, including Xinjiang, Tibet, Outer Mongolia, and Taiwan, gaining total control of China. The dynasty reached its zenith during the High Qing era and under the Qianlong Emperor, who reigned from 1735 to 1796. This reign was followed by a century of gradual decline. The house lost power in 1912 following the Xinhai Revolution. Puyi, the last Aisin-Gioro emperor, nominally maintained his imperial title in the Forbidden City until the Articles of Favourable Treatm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paektu Mountain
Paektu Mountain (), also known as Baekdu Mountain and in China as Changbai Mountain ( zh, s=长白山, t=長白山; Manchu: Golmin Šanggiyan Alin), is an active stratovolcano on the Chinese–North Korean border. At , it is the highest mountain of the Baekdudaegan and Changbai ranges. Koreans assign a mythical quality to the volcano and its caldera lake, considering it to be their country's spiritual home. It is the highest mountain in North Korea and Northeast China. A large crater lake, called Heaven Lake, is in the caldera atop the mountain. The caldera was formed by the VEI 7 "Millennium" or "Tianchi" eruption of 946, which erupted about of tephra. This was one of the largest and most violent eruptions in the last 5,000 years (alongside the Minoan eruption, the Hatepe eruption of Lake Taupō in around AD 180, the 1257 eruption of Mount Samalas near Mount Rinjani and the 1815 eruption of Tambora). The mountain plays an important mythological and cultural and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luo Hongxian
Luo Hongxian (; 1504 – 1564) was a Ming dynasty Chinese cartographer. He also studied astronomy, geography, irrigation methods, military affairs and mathematics. After passing the Imperial Examinations with the rank of ''jinshi'' in 1529, Luo worked as a senior compiler at the Hanlin Academy. He was a student of the philosophies of the Neo-Confucian Wang Yangming. Hearing of raids by wokou pirates on China's south-eastern shores, he began collating cartographical information for the Ming government, spending three years in research. During this period, he discovered the ''Yutu'' (Terrestrial Map), an atlas of China created by Zhu Siben during the Yuan dynasty some 300 years earlier around 1320, which he adapted and expanded using Chinese measuring methods to create his ''Guang Yu Tu'' 廣與圖 (Enlarged territorial atlas), a work that covered the entire country. It was first published in 1561, and remained the principal reference work in Chinese cartography until the 17th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guang Yu Tu
{{Disambiguation ...
Guang may refer to: * Guang (vessel), an ancient Chinese drinking vessel * Guang people, ethnic group of northern Ghana * Guang languages, languages spoken by the Guang people * Guangzhou, city in Guangdong, China * Liangguang, Guangdong and Guangxi in China * Helü, King of Wu, personal name Guang * ''Guang'' (film), a 2018 Malaysian Mandarin-language film See also * Prince Guang (other) * Kuan (other) * Guan (other) Guan may refer to: * Guan (surname), several similar Chinese surnames ** Guān, Chinese surname * Guan (state), ancient Chinese city-state * Guan (bird), any of a number of bird species of the family Cracidae, of South and Central America * Guan ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kangnido
The Honil Gangni Yeokdae Gukdo Ji Do ("Map of Integrated Lands and Regions of Historical Countries and Capitals (of China)"Kenneth R. Robinso Choson Korea in the Ryukoku Kangnidoin ''Imago Mundi'', Vol. 59 No. 2 (June 2007) pp. 177–192, via Ingenta Connect.), often abbreviated as Kangnido, is a world map created in Korea, produced by Kwon Kun and Yi Hoe in 1402.Cartography of Korea, pgs. 235–345, Gari Ledyard ''al''., (Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin, Madison), The History of Cartography, Volume Two, Book Two, Cartography in Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies, 1994, The University of Chicago Press, J. B. Harley and David Woodward ''ed''., (Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI / Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI), pgs. slip cover, 243–247, . The Kangnido is one of the oldest ''surviving'' world maps from East Asia, along with the Chinese '' Da Ming Hun Yi Tu'' (ca. 1398). Surv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geography In Medieval Islam
Medieval Islamic geography and cartography refer to the study of geography and cartography in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age (variously dated between the 8th century and 16th century). Muslim scholars made advances to the map-making traditions of earlier cultures, particularly the Hellenistic geographers Ptolemy and Marinus of Tyre, combined with what explorers and merchants learned in their travels across the Old World ( Afro-Eurasia). Islamic geography had three major fields: exploration and navigation, physical geography, and cartography and mathematical geography. Islamic geography reached its apex with Muhammad al-Idrisi in the 12th century. History Islamic geography began in the 8th century, influenced by Hellenistic geography, combined with what explorers and merchants learned in their travels across the Old World ( Afro-Eurasia). Muslim scholars engaged in extensive exploration and navigation during the 9th-12th centuries, including journeys across the Mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries was the largest contiguous land empire in history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Europe, extending northward into parts of the Arctic; eastward and southward into parts of the Indian subcontinent, attempted invasions of Southeast Asia and conquered the Iranian Plateau; and westward as far as the Levant and the Carpathian Mountains. The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of several nomadic tribes in the Mongol homeland under the leadership of Temüjin, known by the more famous title of Genghis Khan (–1227), whom a council proclaimed as the ruler of all Mongols in 1206. The empire grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast transcontinental empire connected the East with the West, and the Pacific to the Mediterranean, in an enforced ''Pax Mongol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compass
A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with magnetic north. Other methods may be used, including gyroscopes, magnetometers, and GPS receivers. Compasses often show angles in degrees: north corresponds to 0°, and the angles increase clockwise, so east is 90°, south is 180°, and west is 270°. These numbers allow the compass to show azimuths or bearings which are commonly stated in degrees. If local variation between magnetic north and true north is known, then direction of magnetic north also gives direction of true north. Among the Four Great Inventions, the magnetic compass was first invented as a device for divination as early as the Chinese Han Dynasty (since c. 206 BC),Li Shu-hua, p. 176 and later adopted for navigation by the Song Dynasty Chinese during the 11th centur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
