The Confusions of Space

Abstract

This study presents a typology of Ming-era printed and comprehensive works of geography over the course of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and early seventeenth centuries. It traces how state-led efforts at defining imperial space in the Da Ming yitong zhi (1461) were gradually displaced by the competing spatial constructs found in the scholarly atlas and the commercial guidebook. Finally, following wider trends in the late Ming book market at the turn of the seventeenth century, the disparate spatial arrangements found in these three types of books on geography were increasingly juxtaposed and combined for an ever-expanding readership. As a result, a more creative and open attitude emerged vis-à-vis the ordering of Ming space and its relationship to the outside world.