Mapping Tartary:
A Digital Exploration of European Cartography

From the rise of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century to the 18th-century expansion into Xinjiang by the Qing dynasty, “Tartary” was the general term Europeans used to describe the vast and largely unknown territories of Central Asia, while “Tartars” referred to the peoples inhabiting that region. For centuries, a great deal of confusion surrounded the actual places and peoples of this part of the world among European observers. The information that filtered back to Europe was primarily gathered, processed, and disseminated through the commercial and knowledge centers of the Netherlands and Italy. Beginning in the late 16th century, this information was visualized in printed maps and atlases, which became the principal means by which Europeans came to understand Central and East Asia until direct and regular contact became prevalent towards the end of the 18th century.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) holds a unique collection of European maps of China and Tartary. While considerable scholarship exists on the history of European maps of China — most recently surveyed in the Principal Investigator’s monograph Regnum Chinae: The Printed Western Maps of China to 1735 (Brill, 2022) — there is a notable absence of comprehensive studies focused specifically on Tartary. The cartographic representation of Tartary from the 16th to the 18th centuries offers a singular lens through which to examine historical perceptions of geography, culture, and imperial power.

This project aims to develop a digital platform that will enable scholars, students, and the general public to explore and analyze the evolving representations of Tartary in European maps. By utilizing Digital Humanities methodologies, the project will build an interactive repository housing high-resolution map images alongside contextual information, analytical tools, and visualization capabilities. The platform is modeled on the website accompanying the Regnum Chinae book (Mappa Sinica) and will extend its framework with new features tailored to the study of Tartary.

The platform will also serve as a teaching resource for HUMA courses currently offered at HKUST, including “Marco Polo and the Silk Road,” “China in Maps,” and “History of Explorations.”