Mori Koan (森幸安)
Koan MORI (1701 - ?) was a cartographer in the mid-Edo period. He was somewhat of a mystery for a long time, but recently the whole picture has been gradually revealed. It is said that he made his Nippon Yochizu (map of Japan) by combining maps of Japan and the world that he had collected or copied in Kyoto and Osaka from 1748 to 1763.
Among those maps, the Nippon Bunyazu (map of Japan) included latitude and longitude lines for the first time and is noteworthy for including degrees of latitude. It is also noted for describing Take-shima Island (present-day Utsuryo-to Island), which Japan supposedly parted with during the Take-shima Ikken (The Take-shima Affair) at the end of the 17th century.
In all, he created about 300 maps. The maps are kept in various places, including the National Archives of Japan, Kitano Tenman-gu Shrine, Kyoto City Museum of Historical Materials, Kotohira-gu Shrine Library, Hakodate City Central Library. The National Archives of Japan houses 222 maps.
His book was called "Nippon-shi." The book included an astronomical chart, a world map, a map of Japan, maps of the 68 provinces of Japan, a map of castle towns, a map of shrines and temples, and a map of places of scenic beauty. Koan attempted to collate these maps to create a visual representation. In other words, he attempted to create a spacial arrangement so that a person, by looking at the astronomical chart, then the world map, the map of Japan, and then the national map, could confirm where they were from a universal point of view. Furthermore, he took the attitude that all information should be included in the maps.
Tadataka INO conducted a survey to precisely describe terrain, but information such as who lives where was not included in his map. Commercial sightseeing maps by, for example, Yoshinaga HAYASHI, only described information relating to sightseeing. In contrast, Koan attempted to include in the maps as much information as possible from past to present. Unlike Tadataka INO, there is no evidence that he conducted a survey; however, he took an objective point of view by traveling mainly around the Kinai region (the five provinces surrounding the ancient capitals of Nara and Kyoto), gathering information from villagers and drawing on geographical descriptions of earlier scholars.