By Anna Xie
This is a hand painted map depicting the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. The center of the map is around Tokyo and covers Choshi in the eastward direction and westward towards Mt. Fuji. It was first published on September 15, 1924 by the Osaka Daily Newspaper. On the back of the map is information about the recovery efforts during the year that has passed.
The cartographer is Hatsusaburo Yoshida (1884 – 1955) who is known to make bird’s eye view paintings. He apprenticed under Takeshiro Kanokogi. He has made over 3,000 maps during his lifetime, but for the Kanto Earthquake map; he did months of research before creating the map. His map garnered praise because it spoke to the survivors at the time.
The Great Kanto Earthquake was a natural disaster that struck Japan, and forced them to rethink their entire society and social structure. Over 142,000 people died due to this earthquake. Japan is prone to natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes because of the country’s location on the western edge of the ring of fire. This map is one of the early earthquake maps and shows how much this seismic event affected built infrastructure in the wider Tokyo region.
Sources:
David Rumsey Map Collection