page_title: Nicolaes Witsen
section_title: Cartography
hierarchical_section_title: Nicolaes Witsen / Cartography
caption_attribution_description: Latina: Tartaria, sive magni Chami Imperium ex credendis amplissimi viri, Amsterdam 1705 60 x 51 cm Publisher: Carolo Allard Русский: Карта Тартарии голландца Николая Витсена, 1705. Национальная библиотека Португалии. Deutsch: Die Tartarei, oder das Reich des Großen Khans ...
context_page_description: Nicolaes Witsen was a Dutch statesman who was mayor of Amsterdam thirteen times, between 1682 and 1706. In 1693 he became administrator of the Dutch East India Company. In 1689 he was extraordinary-ambassador to the English court and became Fellow of the Royal Society. In his free time, he was cartographer, maritime writer, and an authority on shipbuilding. His books on the subject are important sources on Dutch shipbuilding in the 17th century. Furthermore, he was an expert on Russian affairs. He was the first to describe Siberia, the Far East and Central Asia in his study Noord en Oost Tartarye [North and East Tartary].
context_section_description: After 20 years' study, Witsen published the first map of Siberia in 1690. This map represented the world from Nova Zembla to as far away as China. Witsen had discussed with the tsar the trade routes to Persia via the Caspian Sea and to China via Siberia. In 1692 he published a compendium titled "Noord en Oost Tartarye", describing Siberia and the surrounding areas, though without literary references. He consulted classical authors and Arabic medieval writers as well as his learned contemporaries in Europe. The second enlarged edition, a bulky book, also written in the 17th century Dutch, presents a rather complicated mixture of various texts with encyclopaedic details. It appeared in 1705 and was reprinted in 1785. In this book, Witsen gave an account of all the information available to the Europeans at that time about the northern and eastern parts of Europe and Asia, and also about the Volga area, Crimea, Caucasus, Central Asia, Mongolia, Tibet, China, Korea and the neighbouring parts of Japan. In the text, for instance, we find lists of 900 Georgian and 700 Kalmyk words and illustrations of the writing systems of Tibetan, Manchu and Mongolian languages. Witsen provides word lists and other data on more than 25 languages. In 1692 Witsen received the diary of Maarten Gerritsz Vries, who had explored the coast of Sahkalin in 1643, and it was never seen again.
caption: Map of Tartary (Land of the Tartars)
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