The Dragon's Tail is a name for the Indochinese Peninsula in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

which appeared in medieval Arabian and Renaissance European world maps. It formed the eastern shore of the

Great Gulf The Great Gulf is a glacial cirque (landform), cirque, or amphitheater-like valley head formed from a glacier by erosion, located in the White Mountains (New Hampshire), White Mountains of New Hampshire. The cirque's walls are formed, from south ...

(

Gulf of Thailand The Gulf of Thailand (), historically known as the Gulf of Siam (), is a shallow inlet adjacent to the southwestern South China Sea, bounded between the southwestern shores of the Indochinese Peninsula and the northern half of the Malay Peninsula. ...

) east of the Golden Chersonese (

Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula is located in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area contains Peninsular Malaysia, Southern Tha ...

), replacing the " unknown lands" which

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

and others had thought surrounded the " Indian Sea".

Name

The peninsula known to modern cartographers as the "Dragon's Tail" or "Tiger's Tail" appeared under various names on different maps.

History

Early history

The peninsula does not appear in any surviving manuscript of

's ''

Geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

'' or other Greek geographers. Instead, it is first attested in the Ptolemaic-influenced ''

Book of the Description of the Earth A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, mo ...

'' compiled by

al-Khwārizmī Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi , or simply al-Khwarizmi, was a mathematician active during the Islamic Golden Age, who produced Arabic-language works in mathematics, astronomy, and geography. Around 820, he worked at the House of Wisdom in B ...

around 833 AD. Ptolemy's map ended at 180°E of the

Fortunate Isles The Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blessed (, ''makarōn nēsoi'') were semi-legendary islands in the Atlantic Ocean, variously treated as a simple geographical location and as a winterless earthly paradise inhabited by the heroes of Greek myth ...

without being able to explain what might lie on the imagined eastern shore of the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

or beyond the lands of the Sinae and of Serica in

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. Chinese Muslims traditionally credit the Companion Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas with having missionized the country as early as the 7th century; the trading community was large enough that a large-scale massacre is recorded at

Yangzhou Yangzhou is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province, East China. Sitting on the north bank of the Yangtze, it borders the provincial capital Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north, Yancheng to the northeast, Taizhou, Jiangsu, ...

in 760. Merchants such as Soleiman showed Al-Khwārizmī that the Indian Ocean was not closed as

Hipparchus Hipparchus (; , ; BC) was a Ancient Greek astronomy, Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. Hippar ...

and Ptolemy had held but opened either narrowly or broadly. Al-Khwārizmī left most of Ptolemy's eastern coast but the creation of the strait created a new peninsula, beyond which he placed the Sea of Darkness and the Island of the Jewel.

Age of Discovery

Bartholomew Dias passed the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

during a major storm in 1488; within a year or two, Martellus had published a world map showing the communication of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, creating an unconnected south point of Africa and transforming the eastern end of Ptolemy's shoreline into a great peninsula, similar to that described by Al-Khwārizmī. The area was detailed with locations from

Marco Polo Marco Polo (; ; ; 8 January 1324) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known a ...

and other travelers, including positions formerly related to Ptolemy's Golden Chersonese. A similar peninsula then appeared on the

Erdapfel __NOTOC__ The ; ) is a terrestrial globe in diameter, produced by Martin Behaim from 1490 to 1492. The Erdapfel is the oldest surviving terrestrial globe. It is constructed of a laminated linen ball in two halves, reinforced with wood and over ...

globe drafted by Martin of Bohemia in 1492, just prior to Columbus's return. In the mid-16th century, António Galvão mentioned a map that had been purchased in 1428 by Dom Pedro, eldest son of John I, which described the

and included "the

Strait of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to the south. Considered the most important natura ...

" under the name "Dragon's Tail" (). Some

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

n scholars have taken this at face value as evidence of early and thorough exploration of the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

, but their claims have not been substantiated.

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...

—at least initially—believed in the existence of the peninsula, whose position and attendant islands considerably shortened the expected distance from the

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

n coast to

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

. He may have been guided directly by Martellus's maps. Columbus considered himself to have arrived at

Champa Champa (Cham language, Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ, چمڤا; ; 占城 or 占婆) was a collection of independent Chams, Cham Polity, polities that extended across the coast of what is present-day Central Vietnam, central and southern Vietnam from ...

, which figured prominently in three inscriptions on Martellus's 1491 map, and cartographers began to draw discoveries in

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

on the eastern shore of the phantom peninsula.

Amerigo Vespucci Amerigo Vespucci ( , ; 9 March 1454 – 22 February 1512) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Florence for whom "Naming of the Americas, America" is named. Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the A ...

also considered himself to have arrived at this peninsula rather than a

new world The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

. Another form of this peninsula appeared in the 1502 Cantino planisphere smuggled out of

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

for the

Duke of Ferrara This is a list of rulers of the estates owned by the House of Este, Este family, which main line of Marquesses (''Marchesi d'Este'') rose in 1039 with Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan. The name "Este" is related to the city where the family came ...

. The map has lost the

and the peninsula continues to be too large, but it has merged with the Golden Chersonese as a single landform and bent more towards the east, apparently influenced by Arabic sources. The Portuguese were aware of the peninsula's likely nonexistence by shortly after the fall of Malacca, when

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

acquired a large Javanese map of Southeast Asia. The original was lost aboard the '' Froll de la Mar'' shortly afterwards but a tracing by Francisco Rodrigues was sent in its place as part of a letter to the king. Nonetheless, published maps continued to include it in different forms for another century.

Details

The southern end of the peninsula was generally known as the Cape of Cattigara. Martellus's world maps include labels marking the areas of Upper India (''India Superior''),

(''Ciamba Provincia''), and Greater Champa (''Ciamba Magna Provincia'').

Notes

Citations

References

* . * . * . * Robert J. King, "Finding Marco Polo’s Locach", ''Terrae Incognitae'', vol.50, no.1, April 2018, pp.1-18. * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * {{Citation , last=Suárez , first=Thomas , title=Early Mapping of Southeast Asia , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wQTQAgAAQBAJ , publisher=Periplus Editions , location=Singapore , date=1999, isbn=9781462906963 .

External links

The c. 1489 Martellus world map

its negative
at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & MS Library Geography in the medieval Islamic world Cartographic errors