All maps ©Sterling Memorial Library Map Collection.

Nagasaki, probably late 1800s

This is a section of a map that depicts the entire Nagasaki harbor region, from the city of Nagasaki proper in the north to the southern tip of the peninsula that protects the harbor. The detail pictured here (oriented with west at top) shows the city, the surrounding mountains, and even the bridges over the Urakami River, which flows due south through Nagasaki.

This map, says map dealer Bill Reese '77, shows “the very different forms of visualizing cartography that you often see in non-Western maps,” especially in its depictions of mountains and other relief detail. In the past two decades, historians have increasingly begun studying maps as cultural objects.