Huayi tu


The Hua Yi Tu is a map engraved as a stone stele in 7th year of Fuchang era. It is the earliest surviving map of China that relates China with other foreign states. The stele is now in the Stele Forest or Beilin Museum in Xi'an, China.

Origin

The stele was commissioned under the Great Qi dynasty, a puppet state of the Jurchen Jin which ruled over northern China at that time. The stone stele stands 1136.79 tall and 79 cm wide, with the map measuring 79 cm high and 78 cm wide. An unknown cartographer engraved the Huayi map.

Features

The map depicts mountains, rivers, lakes, as well as more than 400 administrative place names of China. It covers an area bounded in the north by the Great Wall of China, northeast by Heilongjiang region, extending south to the island of Hainan. At the edges of the map are a few other states such as Korea on the northeast and India on the southwest.
The map of China is surrounded by blocks of texts, which references back to the Tang dynasty map of Jia Dan called Hainei Huayi Tu presented to Emperor Dezong of Tang in 801. The later Huayi Tu map covers China during the Jin and Southern Song Dynasty. The texts arranged around the edges of the map provides information from historical and other sources briefly explaining markers such as the Great Wall, the size of the empire, brief descriptions of Korea, Japan and other foreign states as well as lists of the states to the south and west of China.
on the reverse side of Huayi tu is the gridded Yu Ji Tu carved in 1142. This map is the earliest surviving example of lattice cartographic grid found in Chinese map.
The stele containing the carved map is thought to be stored at the Stele Forest in Xi'an, but is not displayed due to the political sensitivity of not depicting the island of Taiwan on it, which can be interpreted as Taiwan not belonging to China at the time of the map's production.