La Japanese Maps Collection del John Rylands Research Institute and Library

The Japanese Maps Collection of the John Rylands Research Institute and Library (University of Manchester) includes roughly 70 cartographic items, originally from the Map Collection and the Japanese Collection of the University of Manchester Library. The collection has been identified and its items have been digitized and catalogued in the context of the Horizon 2020 project titled “Travel in Tokugawa Period Japan (1603-1868): Identity, Nation and Social Transformation”. This essay analyses the collection, describing its structure, briefly illustrating its history and highlighting the connections between its items. It also presents the collection as a case study on how geographical visions of the Japanese territory have travelled through space and time, from the sixteenth century onwards.