Ch'onha chido [Atlas of all under Heaven]

A nice manuscript example of a Ch’onha chido [Atlas of all under Heaven] with 15 maps, one map more than usually the case. Most have a description of the region or title on the overleaf but not all of them do. Characters in a refined regular script.

Ch’onha chido is a 19th century copy of the traditional Korean atlas produced in the early Choson dynasty (1392-1910). One of the maps in the atlas, "Ch’onhado" (Map of the world), which is a unique and popular China-centered world map seen in Korean perspective.

The typical contents of the traditional Korean atlases during this period consist of the following: a world map bearing the title Ch’onhado, with China, Korea, Japan and the Ryukyus at the center, surrounded by a ring of islands and other landforms that become increasingly mythological with distance from the center.
The second map depicts China and Korea, maps of the Ryukyu Islands, a map of Korea, maps of the eight provinces of Korea. The style and arrangement of the provincial maps is ultimately derivative of the Sinjung tongguk yoji sungnam, as is common for both printed and manuscript atlases of the latter Choson period.

The map of China in this atlas prominently depicts the Great Wall and the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. This map may have been derived from a map produced during the Chinese Ming Empire (1368-1644).