Chinese Tartary (see also
Tartary
Tartary ( la, Tartaria, french: Tartarie, german: Tartarei, russian: Тартария, Tartariya) or Tatary (russian: Татария, Tatariya) was a blanket term used in Western European literature and cartography for a vast part of Asia bound ...
) is an archaic geographical term used especially during the time of the
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
. The term "Tartar" was used by Europeans to refer to ethnicities living around China's north, northeast, and west, including the Mongols, Manchus, Tibetans, Central Asians, and even Japanese (as indicated in violet on the map below).
History of the term
Early European writers used the term "Tartar" indiscriminately for all the peoples of
Northern Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago an ...
and referred to their lands as "Tartary". By the seventeenth century, however, largely under the influence of Catholic missionary writings, the word "Tartar" came to refer to the
Manchus
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and ...
, and the land they ruled as "Tartary." The term "Chinese Tartary" was used as early as 1734 on a map created by the French geographer and cartographer
Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville
Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville (; born in Paris 11 July 169728 January 1782) was a French geographer and cartographer who greatly improved the standards of map-making. D'Anville became cartographer to the king, who purchased his cartographic ...
(1697–1782), who published the map in the ''Nouvel atlas de la Chine, de la Tartarie Chinoise et du Thibet'' (New atlas of China, Chinese Tartary, and Tibet) in 1738.
D'Anville's map was based on work ordered by the Emperor of China and conducted by the Chinese under the supervision of Jesuits.
Also published in 1738 was ''A description of the empire of China and Chinese-Tartary together with the kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet'' by
Jean-Baptiste Du Halde. In 1741, he went on to write ''The General History of China Containing a Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political and Physical Description of the Empire of China, Chinese-Tartary, Corea and Thibet''.
Modern areas
The areas described by this work as falling within Chinese Tartary included:
*
Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwes ...
* Mongolia (
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
and
Outer Mongolia
Outer Mongolia was the name of a territory in the Manchu people, Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China from 1691 to 1911. It corresponds to the modern-day independent state of Mongolia and the Russian republic of Tuva. The historical region gain ...
)
*
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...
*
Qinghai
Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...
In 1832, the geographical boundaries of Chinese Tartary were defined in ''A Geographical Dictionary Or Universal Gazetteer''.
By 1867, the area of Chinese Tartary was described as the three vast areas covering Manchuria, Mongolia, and Ili (Xinjiang).
Notes on Chinese Tartary
by Captain Sherard Osborne R.N. C.B, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London Vol. 11, No. 4 (1866 - 1867), pp. 162-166
Further reading
* "Chinese Tartary", ''The Asiatic journal and monthly register for British and foreign India, China and Australasia, Volume 20''. Allen, 1836. p
292
References
{{reflist
Regions of China
Geography of Asia