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Suningga’s Wanli Huijiang Tu and Qing Geographic Knowledge of Xinjiang in the Late Eighteenth Century

  • Author:

    Ling-Wei Kung

  • Page Number:

    94.3:573-651

  • Date:

    2023/09

  • Cite Download

Abstract

The Fu Ssu-nien Library of the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica is in possession of Wanli Huijiang tu 萬里回疆圖 (Atlas of the Hui’s Territories), a large map of Xinjiang produced by Suningga (Suning’a 蘇寧阿 in Chinese, 1731–1805), a Qing Mongol banner officer, in 1773. As the only existing copy in the world, this colorful manuscript map is rich in cultural and heritage value. Additionally, it contains significant historical meanings in providing abundant pictorial and literary information on Xinjiang under the rule of the Qing dynasty in the late eighteenth century, especially regarding the so-called “xiyu” 西域 (western regions) and the influence of Qing infrastructure on Xinjiang’s landscape. The map, in this way, meticulously illustrates the natural and human landscape of southern Xinjiang, with attention paid to the infrastructure and social situation of Altishahr after the Qing conquest of the Zunghars. It should be noted that a voluminous preface and postscript are included in which Suningga elaborates the creation process of the map, namely it being based on his military experience in Xinjiang in the 1760s, writings which profoundly shed light on the interactions between diverse knowledge traditions such as Song-Ming geomancy, Qing historical and geographic studies of Northwest China, and Islamic geographic studies from Central Asia. Moreover, this map—centered on Xinjiang—contains extensive geographic records that profoundly reflect the author’s geographic understandings of “land under heaven” 天下, thereby providing critical clues which further our apprehension of the development of cartography, geography, and related worldviews in the Qing empire. 
By contextualizing the cartographic images and literary annotations of Wanli Huijiang tu together with related Qing records in Manchu and Chinese, the present article investigates the development of Qing geographic knowledge of the western regions as well as the above influences of Qing infrastructure by considering perspectives on the interactions between late imperial China and Central Eurasia in the eighteenth century. Finally, aside from including colorful photocopies of Wanli Huijiang tu and both its preface and postscript with critical annotations as appendices, this article, based on historical and philological studies of the map, has reconstructed the Qing traffic routes within southern Xinjiang by mapping it in a geographic information system.

Keywords

Wanli Huijiang tu by Suningga; Qing maps of Xinjiang; history and geography of “xiyu”; geographic knowledge; infrastructure

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Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Citation Text

Footnote
Ling-Wei Kung, “Suningga’s Wanli Huijiang Tu and Qing Geographic Knowledge of Xinjiang in the Late Eighteenth Century,” Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 94.3 (2023): 573-651.

Bibliography
Kung, Ling-Wei
2023 “Suningga’s Wanli Huijiang Tu and Qing Geographic Knowledge of Xinjiang in the Late Eighteenth Century.” Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 94.3: 573-651.
Kung, Ling-Wei. (2023). Suningga’s Wanli Huijiang Tu and Qing Geographic Knowledge of Xinjiang in the Late Eighteenth Century. Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 94(3), 573-651.
Kung, Ling-Wei. “Suningga’s Wanli Huijiang Tu and Qing Geographic Knowledge of Xinjiang in the Late Eighteenth Century.” Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 94, no. 3 (2023): 573-651.
Kung, Ling-Wei. “Suningga’s Wanli Huijiang Tu and Qing Geographic Knowledge of Xinjiang in the Late Eighteenth Century.” Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, vol. 94, no. 3, 2023, pp. 573-651.
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