Asian Surveying & Mapping
Breaking News
bitsensing Signs MOU with IKIO Technologies to Advance AI-Based Traffic Monitoring on India’s Expressways, Highways and Municipal Areas
Backed by proven success in South Korea and Europe,...
Nuri rocket successfully completes KAIST’s next-gen satellite mission
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)...
President Lai reviews progress on first indigenous satellite constellation
President Lai Ching-te said developing space technology is a...
Japan’s iQPS lines up eight SAR launches
ST. LOUIS — Japan’s Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of...
UAE Astronauts Promote AI and Collaboration in Space at GITEX Europe
The Arab world’s first astronaut, Hazzaa Al Mansouri, and...
New species of space-adapted bacteria discovered on China’s Tiangong space station
Scientists have discovered a previously unknown strain of microbe...
Isro’s 101st mission fails as PSLV-C61 suffers third-stage anomaly
India’s latest Earth observation satellite mission faced a setback...
Iraq’s First Fully Solar-Powered Village in Kulak Is Now Operational
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – May 20, 2025 — The...
Australia’s Gilmour Space Technologies ready to launch maiden Eris Test flight the nation’s first orbital launch in over 50 years
Gilmour Space Technologies is the leading launch services company...
Korea’s space agency seeks revision of plan to modify next-gen rockets into reusable system
South Korea's aerospace agency said on Thursday that it...
A Japanese map created in 1916 shows an area near Pyongyang, North Korea. (Credit: Stanford University)

A Japanese map created in 1916 shows an area near Pyongyang, North Korea. (Credit: Stanford University)

According to an article in National Geographic, eight years ago, Stanford graduate student Meiyu Hsieh stumbled across an uncataloged archive of 8,000 military maps captured from Japan toward the end of World War II.  

Stylistically, the maps were remarkably diverse. “Each series of maps was designed to fit an individual condition, and, as a result, the maps show a variety of colors, symbols and format,” wrote William E. Davies (in 1948), the chief of research at the Army Map Service in the years after World War II.

And now the maps are being rediscovered by scholars to study the geopolitical and environmental history of Asia. “They’re a treasure for historical research,” said Kären Wigen, an East Asian historian at Stanford University.