by DAVID FEDMAN
“Imperial Japan in 1942, showing the progressive territorial expansions from 1870.” MAP/Wikipedia
On September 21, 1909, the delegates to the sixteenth conference of the International Geodetic Association (IGA) assembled in the lecture room of the Institution of Civil Engineers in Westminster, London for a busy day of “presentations of Reports of geodetic work of various kinds done in different countries” (Helmert 1909, 375). Covering a broad sweep of topics and geographical terrain, the day’s proceedings included a discussion of the potential linkage of the triangulation surveys of India and Russia via the northern frontier of the Himalayas, a presentation on “the comparative merits of Invar wires and tapes for the measurement of base-lines,” and a progress report on the International Latitude Service, which was then hard at work consolidating the measurements of longitude and latitude provided by each participant nation. If the outlook of one observer, F.R. Helmert, is representative, the mood at the conference was marked by pride and optimism. “The efforts of the International Geodetic Association,” he wrote, “are…crowned with success in reducing to quite a small quantity the uncertainty in the form and dimensions of the Earth” (1909, 377).
Though perhaps oversized, Helmert’s confidence was not unfounded, for the geodetic sciences—those concerned with the measurement and mapping of the earth—were then in the midst of a veritable boom brought about by a host of scientific advancements. None of these advancements inspired more excitement or commanded more international attention than the triangulation survey: a mapmaking technique that, though old by the time of the 1909 conference, offered a level of precision previously unimaginable when coupled with the cutting-edge surveying instruments of the time. Not surprisingly, the IGA was at the vanguard of the international triangulation project. Founded in 1886 for the purpose of “forming an association through which the geodetic work carried on by various governments could be compared, harmonized, and rendered more efficient,” this body quickly established itself as the international hothouse for scientifically rigorous cartography.1 Although standardizing the methods of mapmaking was not an explicit goal of the IGA, by “virtue of the active interchange of ideas,” commented one contemporary expert, the body “exert[ed] a strong influence in making the methods used in various countries more nearly uniform and progressive” (Reinsch 1911, 68). This is especially true of the tools and techniques of the triangulation survey, which dominated the 1909 agenda.
If triangulation dominated the content of the 1909 conference, the world’s colonial powers (namely Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States) dominated its composition. This is in no small part because, as this paper will show, colonialism and cartography were deeply intertwined undertakings. Scientifically rigorous maps, after all, were the lingua franca of international sovereignty, making them a sine qua non for the acquisition of and authority over colonial territories. Indeed, whatever the differences in the colonial policies and ambitions of the so-called Great Powers, all of these nations shared an awareness of the instrumental role that cartographic knowledge played in the imperial project. As such, these nations often dispatched their brightest cartographic minds to their colonies, where they oversaw the production of cutting-edge maps, most of which were realized through the triangulation survey. One need only inspect the list of delegates to the 1909 conference to gain a sense of the close ties between the geodetic sciences and colonialism. Among those present were Colonel Sir W. Morris, chief surveyor of Great Britain’s Geodetic Survey of South Africa; Major Lenox-Conyngham, then director of the Great Triangulation Survey of India; General Bassot of France, then president of the association and formerly a chief surveyor for the French Geodetic Survey in Algeria; and many others (Helmert 1909, 375).
Lesser known among these delegates was Terao Hisashi (1855–1923), one of Japan’s preeminent astronomers and then chairman of its Imperial Geodetic Committee. Although his contributions to the conference remain obscure (his name appears sparsely in the proceedings), his presence was significant. As the first director of the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory, the first dean of the Tokyo College of Science, and the chief executive responsible for the development of land-surveying techniques in Japan, Terao knew better than anyone the credence that the geodetic sciences lent to Japan’s status as a first-rank nation (itto koku), one entitled to its colonies (Nakagiri 2009). This sentiment, of course, was not peculiar to Terao: the Japanese government had in fact moved early and vigorously in its pursuit of scientifically rigorous maps.2 By 1909, on the eve of Japan’s annexation of Korea, Japan had already established an impressive network of surveying schools, trained a cadre of professional surveyors, completed a triangulation survey of the Japanese archipelago, and conducted a land survey of Taiwan (Kobayashi 2011). That Japan was the only Asian nation present at the 1909 conference bespeaks its energetic pursuit of and contributions to the geodetic sciences. And just like the Great Powers that sat at the helm of the IGA, Japan was quick to dispatch its surveyors to its colonies. Embedded within military units, engineering projects, and colonial governments, these surveyors firmly established themselves as vigorous contributors to Japan’s imperial project.
Like railroads, telegraphs, and guns, maps were tools of empire (Adas 1990; Bayly 2000; Headrick 1981; Mitchell 2002; D. Yang 2011). Indispensable to governance, surveillance, resource extraction, and countless other imperial initiatives, maps formed the lifeblood of the day-to-day operations of the colonial state. But the impetus behind colonial cartography was more than simply utilitarian, for, as a growing number of scholars have shown, the process of surveying was as important as the product (Atkins 2010; Burnett 2000; Edney 1990; Harley and Laxton 1998; Pratt 1992). The survey, after all, made for good science. And science, pregnant as it was with notions of civilization, development, and material progress, sat squarely at the heart of the imperial project. Statistics, blueprints, ethnographies: all formed building blocks upon which Japan’s civilizing mission in Korea would be constructed (Henry 2006; Oh 2008). Maps were no different. Cloaked in the mantle of scientific precision, the triangulation survey showcased Japan’s superior methods. The observations of Norbert Weber, a Benedictine monk who traveled to Korea in 1911, testify to this point: “At each instrument stand,” he wrote, “three to four assistants and a crowd of wondering spectators, who gather in wonder at the undreamed of science no less than at the instrument with its pipes and glasses and spirit levels. What a great pleasure it must be for the local Japanese surveyors to be able to put their science on show like this” (Uden 2003, 58). As some of the first government-general employees to set foot in remote towns, moreover, land surveyors—who were sometimes accompanied by local police and officials—became for many Koreans the face of Japanese officialdom.
It is not hyperbole to state that the history of Japanese colonial cartography is terra incognita for English-language scholarship.3 While scholars writing in English have become attentive to the ways in which Japan immersed itself in the conventions of international law (Dudden 2004), criminal procedure (Botsman 2005), and other hallmarks of the modern nation-state (Ericson 1996; Frühstück 2003; Walker 2005), few have explored the ways in which it sought out and appropriated international cartographic norms. Fewer still have attended to the ways in which maps and mapmakers figured into Japan’s administration of its colonies. In the case of Korea, only the cadastral survey (of which more later) has garnered significant scholarly attention, and existing studies maintain a laser-like focus on issues relating to the expropriation of Korean land by the government-general and settler colonialists. The geodetic aspects of Japan’s land survey of Korea, as a result, have received precious little scholarly attention, despite a growing body of literature addressing mapmaking and imperialism in other colonial contexts (Bassett 1994; Edney 1990; B. Harley 1989; Mitchell 2002; Mundy 2000; Scott 1999; Thongchai 1994) and substantial literature on the subject in Japanese and Korean (in Japanese, Kobayashi 2009, 2011; Miyajima 1991; Takagi 1966; in Korean, Han’guk Yoksa Yon’guhoe 2010; Kim 1997).