Map of China taken from the Atlas van der Hagen, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, part 4. In 1655 Joan Blaeu (1598-1673) published an atlas of China, compiled by the Italian Jesuit Martino Martini (1614-1661). This overview of the Chinese empire constituted the first map in the atlas. It depicts the regions in the atlas which are rendered in more detail in maps contained later: the fifteen Chinese provinces as well as Japan and Korea.