Soviet Military Maps of China

ABSTRACT

As long as maps produced by the official Chinese state mapping agency at scales larger than 1:1,000,000 remain inaccessible, Soviet General staff maps provide the best alternative. Although toponyms are given only in cyrillicized form, vernacular script equivalents may be found on pre-1945 Japanese military survey maps as well as on some maps of the US Army Mapping Service (AMS). A unique feature of the Soviet 1:200,000 map series is the accompanying spravka or descriptive text on the reverse of each sheet, probably constituting in aggregate the most detailed description of China ever compiled. Soviet General Staff plans of Chinese cities include 'objects' of military significance, many of which are omitted or not identified on any other mapping. This paper presents translations of the spravka from a representative sheet of the 1:200,000 series and from the city plan of Beijing, together with an evaluation of the reliability of their content.

KEYWORDS:

• Soviet maps
• topographic maps
• military mapping
• China

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Martin Davis and John Hills for their assistance in creating the map of the Soviet plans of towns and cities in China.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 1:1,000,000 map of China compiled by the China Planning & Design Centre of Surveying & Mapping Engineering, Xi'an, Cartographic Publishing House, 1991.

2 Chūgoku tairiku niman gosenbu no ichi chizu saeki 中国大陸二万五千分の一地図集成, 東京, 科学書院, 1989–1993, pp.144–148.

3 Chūgoku tairiku gomanbu no ichi chizu saeki 中国大陸五万分の一地図集成, 東京, 科学書院, 1986–2002.

4 Chūgoku hondo chizu 中国本土地図 1:100,000 (microfilm).

5 Available at: https://www.geamap.com/en/soviet#11/39.9064/116.3913 and at https://mapstor.com/map-sets/country-maps/china.html (Accessed: 4th April 2021).

6 Available at: https://chinese-cat.lib.cam.ac.uk/mulu/millist.html (Accessed: 4th April 2021).

7 Available at: https://redatlasbook.com/cityplansrow (Accessed: 4th April 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charles Aylmer

Charles Aylmer is Head of the Chinese Department at Cambridge University Library and a member of the Cambridge University Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. He graduated in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and in Philosophy and Chinese Palaeography from Peking University. He has a particular interest in cartography, and curates a collection of recent Chinese maps and atlases in Cambridge University Library which complements its outstanding holdings of world mapping.