With a multi-perspective approach and transdisciplinary methods (humanities and sciences), this book offers an in-depth and systematic study of hand-drawn and hand-coloured maps from East Asia. Map colouring provides an insight into past societies, landscapes and territories. Colour is an important key to a more precise understanding of the map’s content, purposes and uses; moreover, colours are also an important aspect of a map’s materiality. The material scientific analysis of colourants makes it possible to find out more about maps’ material nature and their production as well as the social, geographical and political context in which they were made. ‘Reading’ colours in this way gives a glimpse into the social lives of mapmakers as well as map users and reveals the complexity of the historical and social context in which maps were produced and how the maps were actually made.

Explore the varied features of the Asian continent while reinforcing basic map reading skills. Sixteen student pages and accompanying blackline and full-color maps coordinate to provide a relational study of the elevation, vegetation, products, population, and peoples of Asia. Full-color maps are provided as transparencies for print books and PowerPoint slides for eBooks. Student pages challenge students to combine maps and additional resources in order to answer questions and make judgments. Question topics follow the Five Themes of Geography as outlined by the National Geographic Society: finding absolute and relative locations on a map, relating physical and human characteristics to an area, understanding human relationships to the environment, tracing movement of peoples and goods throughout an area, and organizing countries and continents into regions for detailed study.