Xiu Pei (224–271) was a native of Wenxi County, Hedong, Shanxi Province. He was a cartographer during the Western Jin Dynasty with the rank of Minister of Public Services during the reign of Emperor Wu. He was determined to study mapmaking. He verified ‘Yu Gong’ (China’s oldest known book of geography) in great detail and made a set of 18 maps known as the ‘Yu Gong Area Map’, which was the earliest set of historical maps of China. He summarised the mapmaking experience and promoted six principles of cartography, namely, fen lu (scale), zhun wang (orientation), dao li (distance), gao xia (topography), fang xie (inclination) and yu zhi (straightness). These principles were adopted by Chinese cartographers until the end of the Ming Dynasty. This set of maps occupies an important position in the history of world mapmaking because is considered the earliest foundational scientific theory of planimetric map drawing. In addition to making the ‘Yu Gong Area Map’, Pei Xiu also produced a...
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(2020). Xiu Pei. In: Chen, A., Ng, Y., Zhang, E., Tian, M. (eds) Dictionary of Geotourism. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2538-0_2834
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2538-0_2834
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