Mapping a Nation: Japan’s Most Famous Cartographer, Inō Tadataka

A section of Inō Tadataka’s map of Japan showing Mount Fuji and surrounding areas at 1:36,000 scale. It is 1 of 214 individual, hand-drawn sheets that make up the series. (Courtesy of the National Diet Library)

Inō and his band of surveyors in 1806 chart the port in Mitarai district on the island of Ōsaki Shimojima in present day Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture. (Courtesy of Kure City)

One of a four-map collection covering all of Japan and the island of Karafuto (Sakhalin) created in 1870 based on Inō’s earlier charts. (Courtesy of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan)

Inō’s map of the Kantō region, part of an eight-map series covering Japan drawn to 1:210,000 scale. (Courtesy of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan)