Mamiya Rinzō and the Japanese exploration of Sakhalin Island: cartography and empire

In 1808–1809, a Japanese cartographer named Mamiya Rinzō (1775–1844) traveled to Sakhalin Island, called Kita Ezo or Karafuto by the Japanese, to map the land and document its inhabitants and natural features. In the seventh month of 1809, according to the lunar calendar, Mamiya arrived at Deren, a Chinese outpost along the Amur River in the Heilongjiang region. When Mamiya mapped Sakhalin and central Heilongjiang, he employed Western cartographic sciences to guard Japanese sovereignty by delineating national borders between Russia, China, and Japan; but he also ‘anticipated empire’ in a manner reminiscent of European powers. His maps placed Sakhalin on a universally recognizable grid and emptied the land of its inhabitants, who were formally relegated to the pages of illustrated ethnographies. Mamiya's activities, as well as those of cartographer Inō Tadataka (1745–1818), suggest a global early modern experience with cartography and ethnography, one in which Japan emerged as a periphery of calculation and deployed cartographic tools to construct nation and empire.