Bayou Vista + Tiki Island

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The introduction suggests that the map was drawn to target a broader audience, because non-capital officials rarely have the opportunity to see the comprehensive coastal map preserved in Beijing. Moreover, the text suggests the importance of grasping the empire’s maritime frontier as accurately as possible and evaluating the coastal conditions of the empire. Furthermore, the map exhibits strategic and geographical knowledge of the empire’s littoral territory from various perspectives and at multiple scales. At the very basis, the map showcases the maritime territory governed by the Qing Empire. To that end, the land-water transition zone and the boundary zones between Qing and its neighboring countries that extends from land to the littoral territory are clearly drawn and described. For example, using Tianjin as a starting point, the cartographer first draws our attention to the Bohai Sea, the closest maritime space to the capital area. The northern and northeastern borders were also indicated in a short paratext printed on the map (Figure 11). In addition to mapping out the vast maritime territory governed by the Qing Empire, the mapmaker also intended to provide information that better enables scholar–officials to analyze coastal conditions for civilian, trading, or military purposes. By providing information on coastal locations, the shapeless and miasmic littoral space becomes recognizable and navigable. Although the yanhaitu bears no indication of latitude and longitude and was not made to scale, the mapmaker approximated the distances between different locations and travel

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11. Part of the yanhaitu showing coastal area around the Bohai Sea. 12. Part of the yanhaitu showing coastal area Yellow River delta. times for specific routes under particular weather. Moreover, the littoral space is not depicted as a static two-dimensional surface, but rather a dynamic volume with sectional and temporal qualities. Additional notes, such as “this shoal disappears in high tide and reappears in low tide” (此沙潮漲則沒退則現) found next to shoals illustrated in dashed outlines, reveal the dynamic and ephemeral quality of the littoral space (Figure 12). The graphics and paratextual information on the yanhaitu not only reveal the littoral territory’s physical conditions, such as the shape and location of the coastline or topography, sedimentation, and tides of the seafloor, but also conceptual conditions that are critical to maritime management. A frequently used conceptualization of the maritime frontier since the formal annexation of Taiwan after the 1683 Battle of Penghu, is to divide the boundlessness ocean into two zones, namely, the inner sea space (neihai 內海) and the outer sea space (waihai 外海). Such division is a sociopolitical construction that assists maritime governance. The inner sea is perceived as the farthest extent of the Qing maritime authority, a region legitimately subject to sustained governance and state possession. By contrast, the outer sea space was considered a domain beyond the reach of administrative control and economic extraction, a space where pirates aimed to maximize their autonomy and power. The graphics and paratextual information on the yanhaitu not only reveal the littoral territory’s physical conditions, such as the shape and location of the coastline or topography, sedimentation, and tides of the