Reland's map of Japan was the first map to use Sino-Japanese characters on a European printed map and represents a radical departure from previous European maps of Japan.
Instead of using existing European maps and geographical sources, Reland sourced his information from Japanese maps, most notably a map from the library or Benjamin Dutry, a former director of the Dutch VOC (East India Company).
In some respects, this represented a tremendous leap forward in the geographical depiction of Japan, such as in the treatment of Kyushu and in naming the 66 provinces.
The map first appeared in 1715 in volume 3 of Jean Frederic Benard's “Recuiel de Voiages”.
It was reissued by Reland and Willem Broedelet in a larger format in 1715 , for inclusion in folio atlases.
This example is one of the folio maps from 1715 re-issue.
The hand-colouring may be contemporary but could be from a later date.
There is a large inset of the area around Nagasaki and an ornate dedication cartouche, with about 20 coats of arms.
Adriaan or Hadrianus Reland (1676 – 1718) was a Dutch Orientalist scholar, cartographer and philologist. Even though he never left the Netherlands, he made significant contributions to Middle Eastern and Asian linguistics and cartography, including Persia, Japan and Palestine during biblical times .
In 1699, Reland was appointed Professor of Physics and Metaphysics at the University of Harderwijk. By this point, he had achieved a good knowledge of Arabic, Hebrew, and other Semitic languages. In 1701, at age 25, he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Utrecht. Beginning in 1713, he also taught Hebrew Antiquities. This was extended with a chair in Jewish Antiquity.
Reland gained renown for his research in Islamic studies and linguistics; his work being an early example of comparative linguistics. Additionally, he studied Persian and was interested in the relation of Eastern myths to the Old Testament. He published a work concerning East Asian myths, Dissertationum miscellanearum partes tres, in 1708.
Moreover, he discovered the link for the Malay language to the Western Pacific dictionaries of Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire.
Little is know of Guilielmus (Willem) Broedelet, other than that he was a publisher in Utrecht and Amsterdam between 1690 and 1719.
