The Life of Tadataka (or Chukei) INO, the First Land-Surveyor in the Yedo Period and His Contribution to the Modernization of Japan since the Meiji Restoration

Abstract

A) Tadataka INO (1745-1818) was a remarkable man who established a landmark in the history of cartography of Japan based on his indefatigable survey of the whole of Japan, carried out from 1800 to 1816. His work was so memorable and the Tokyo Geographical Society erected a bronze memorial monument in the Shiba Park, Tokyo, in 1889, but it was removed and lost during the World War II. However, the Society did succeed in the reestablishment of it in the same site with a beautifully designed stone monument in 1965.The account of his life and work was so remarkable that nearly twenty kinds of biographies and biographical stories of Tadataka Ino have been published since the Meiji era. Most of them placed the emphasis upon his indefatigable character, his laborious travel of survey throughout Japan (Fig. 4), and his successful achievement which means, the account of the life of Tadataka Ino has been didactically told in Japan, particularly in the elementary education before the war. Among them, however, “Tadataka Ino, the Japanese land-surveyor”, written by Prof. Ryokichi Otani (1917) is most substantial and authoritative, and some parts of which were revised or shortened, translated into English, and published in 1932.Prof. Otani scientifically analysed the Ino's survey and his manuscript maps and revealed their essential facts and the degree of accuracy of the maps. The book was reviewed by George Sarton in 1936 (Isis, XXXI, I, 196-200), and the account was briefly summarized in the article of Norman Pye and W. G. Beasley in 1951 (Geogr. Jour. CXVII, 178-187).Ino's remarkable achievement was appreciated in Europe earlier than in Japan. For instance, a map of Nippon compiled from Ino's map was published in Europe by von Siebold in 1840, with the result of demonstrating the Japanese progress in surveying and map-making. A somewhat similar kind of story which exemplified the accuracy of Ino's map was told in the article of Pye and Beasley, concerning manuscript copies of Ino's maps carefully kept in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. While in Japan, the Tokugawa Shogunate Government tucked the Ino's original manuscript maps (more than two hundred sheets of large-scale, middle-scale, small scale and others) in the Library, without using them effectively and closed to the public.B) Since the Meiji Restoration Ino's maps have served greatly to meet the urgent needs of modern maps, charts and statistical figures of the Japanese Islands. For instance, Military Land Survey Department produced hastily the maps of 1 : 200, 000 based on Ino's maps (Fig. 6), and some of the sheets served to the public up to 1920's before the modern maps replaced them out. Geographical Bureau of the Home Affairs provided statistical figures of the size of Japanese islands and prefectures and some of the figures maintained their existence up to 1921. Naval Hydrographic Department produced many charts based on the well drawn coastline of Ino's maps (Fig. 5), which have helped the development of coast navigation in Japan.In this way, Japan has owed the rapid progress in social and cultural development since the Meiji Restoration unconsciously and basically to Ino's maps ; in other words, without Ino's maps Japan would have met with various kinds of grave obstacles in the process of modernization. Many of the original manuscript of Ino's maps were lost by the fire in 1873 and the Kanto earthquake in 1923, but carefully copied maps, which provided the basis for practical use, are kept in the Library of the Geographical Survey Institute and others.The year 1967 falls on the 100th year since the Meiji Restoration and gives us a good opportunity to remember and to re-appreciate the remarkable achievement of, and the scientific geographical heritage from Tadataka Ino.