- Title: L'Empire de la Chine
- Author: Jacques-Nicolas Bellin
- Date: 1780
- Medium: Copperplate engraving
- Condition: Very Good Plus - light age toning, left and bottom margins trimmed, vertical and horizontal folding lines, minor tide marks in upper left corner
- Inches: 15 3/4 x 12 7/8 [Paper]
- Centimeters: 40.01 x 32.7 [Paper]
- Product ID: 317050
L'Empire de la Chine Pour servir a l'Histoire Générale des Voyages Par N. Bellin Ingr. ordre. de la Marine 1748.
Nota Pour eviter la confusion on n'a marque sur cette Carte que les Villes du Premier ordre et quelques unes du second Les Premieres sont en Romaine les autres en Italique suprimant par se moyen les mots de Fu. et de Cheu qui caracterisent le Premier et le Second ordre.
Avertissement On a mis dans le Ve. Volume une Carte generale de la Chine copiée sur celle que les Auteurs Anglois ont donnes Mais le Public ayant trouve qu'elle manquoit de cette nettete si necessaire a la Géographie. On a cru y remedier en donnant celle cy pour la quelle on a suivi les Observations qui ont eté faites par des Jesuites Mathematiciens qui en ontrelevé toutes les Provinces par ordre de l'Empereur Et l'on a sumi pour les noms l'ortographe que Mr. L Abbe Prevost a adopté dans sa traduction.
"The Empire of China For Use in the General History of Travel By N. Bellin Engineer Ordinaire of the Navy 1748.
Note To avoid confusion, we have only marked on this Map the First Order Towns and some of the second. The First ones are in Roman, the others in Italics suppressing by means the words of Fu and Cheu which characterize the First and Second Order.
Warning We put in the 5th. Volume a General Map of China copied from the one given by the English Authors. But the public has found that it lacks this clarity so necessary for Geography. We believed to remedy this by giving the one for which we followed the Observations which were made by Jesuit Mathematicians who listed all the Provinces by order of the Emperor. And the spelling that Mr. L'Abbe Prevost adopted in his translation has been added to the names."
Map of China by French hydrographer and geographer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772). Includes Taiwan, the island of Hainan, and Korea. Published as part of Antoine François Prévost d'Exiles influential travel book, L'Histoire Generale des Voyages. Bellin produced a prodigious body of work over a nearly fifty-year career. Appointed hydrographer of the French Navy at the age of eighteen, he eventually became Hydrographer to the King in 1741. He published numerous sea atlases and charts which would be reprinted into the nineteenth century, as well as many maps depicting French colonial territories in the New World. His craftsmanship and commitment to accuracy earned him a distinguished reputation as one of the world's leading cartographers, and many other European mapmakers turned to him for source material.