These maps of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan record the treaty ports during rapid expansion following the Second Opium War and Japan’s opening to Western trade. Co-compiler and editor Nicholas Belfield Dennys produced The Treaty Ports of China and Japan (1867) for merchants, travellers and residents. Coverage includes Canton, Shanghai, Ningbo, the Yangtze ports, Nagasaki, Yokohama, Hakodate and Yedo (Tokyo), alongside harbours, river routes and coastal surveys. Highlights include the large hand-coloured plan of Victoria, Hong Kong, Canton’s walled city and Shanghai’s Bund and foreign concessions. Several particularly early city plans, including Yokohama and Jiujiang, document foreign settlements only a few years after their establishment.
The preface explains that many maps are original and, “even if regarded only as the pioneers of more complete plans, will possess at least some value”. The engravers generally remain unnamed, although the preface states: “while the maps have all been engraved by natives”.