Mirroring Timurid Central Asia in Maps: Some Remarks on Knowledge of Central Asia in Ming Geographical Documents*

Abstract

Through the analysis of three Ming Chinese geographical documents which were depicted during the early sixteenth-century, this article contributes a case study on the geographical knowledge of the Timurid Central Asia in Ming Chinese documents. The article argues, according to abundant geographical information offered by these documents, we can reconstruct the active network of transnational routes that connected the Ming Empire and Timurid Central Asia. Furthermore, these documents provide the highly convincing proof that the knowledge of the Ming court to its contemporary Eurasian competitors was continuously renewed.