Gaihōzu: Japanese Imperial Maps

Last Updated: 21-Oct-2015

This guide gives information about the Japanese military and imperial maps held at Stanford Libraries. It provides background information on the maps as well as access to them through an index map interface. The maps may be downloaded through this interface.

Subject Librarians

Julie Sweetkind-Singer

Assistant Director of Geospatial, Cartographic and Scientific Data & Services, Head of the Branner Earth Sciences Library & Map Collections

Earth Sciences Library & Map Collections (Branner)

(650) 725-1102

sweetkind@stanford.edu

Subjects

Overview

Sinyang, South Pyong An Province of North Korea

1:50,000

First surveyed in 1917, updated in 1932, reprinted in 1947.

Stanford University Libraries holds a large collection of Japanese military and imperial maps, referred to as gaihōzu, or "maps of outer lands." These maps were produced starting in the early Meiji (1868-1912) era and the end of World War II by the Land Survey Department of the General Staff Headquarters, the former Japanese Army. The first charge was to map specific territories beyond Japan's borders. Over time the mapping efforts grew to including "mapping of interimperial boundaries, cadastral surveys of the colonies, and detailed drawings of strategic cities and fortifications." Geographically the Stanford maps cover a broad area including Japan, China, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, the Philippines, and beyond.

The Library is in the process of scanning and making available all of the maps in the collection. In order to quickly assess what we hold for each region, we have created an ArcGIS online interface to access each set. This portal allows you to search for the maps geographically through an index and then download the images at multiple resolutions. This guide provides access to the indexes, details the history of how the maps came to Stanford, and provides resources for further information about this corpus of material.

Distribution of the Maps

Maps were distributed to libraries in the United States through the Army Map Service and the Library of Congress's Map Depository Program. Maps also came to Stanford directly from the Hoover Institute Tokyo Office in 1947 as part of the Wright Project. Dr. Shigeru Kobayashi has written a detailed text in Japanese about these maps entitled, "Gaihōzu: Teikoku Nihon no Ajia chizu." Dr. Kobayashi paper presented at the Stanford Symposium gives a detailed history of the maps in English entitled, "Japanese Mapping of Asia-Pacific Areas, 1873-1945: An Overview."

A listing of known libraries that hold Japanese military and colonial maps produced up to the end of World War II.

Academia Sinica, Taiwan	Southern Methodist University
California Academy of Sciences	Stanford University
Carleton College	Tohoku University, Japan
Claremont College	University of Arkansas
Clark University	University of California, Berkeley
Cleveland Public Library	University of Chicago
Gifu Prefectural Library, Japan	University of Colorado
Harvard University	University of Georgia
Kyoto University, Japan	University of Hawaii, Manoa
Library of Congress	University of Illinois
Louisiana State University	University of Iowa
National Geographic Society	University of Michigan
National Library of Australia	University of New Mexico
New York Public Library	University of Oklahoma
Northwestern University	University of Pittsburgh
Oberlin College	University of Tennessee
Ochanomizu University, Japan	University of Texas
Oklahoma State Library	University of Washington
Oregon State University	University of Wisconsin-Madison, American Geographical Society Library
Osaka University, Japan	Washington State University
Princeton University	Yale University
San Diego Public Library

Resources

Numerous resources have been created in both print and electronic form to aid researchers in the use of the maps. Many of them are in Japanese. Below you'll find books, web resources, and conference proceedings related to the collection.

Stanford University Libraries

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