• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.585-600
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to consider the influence of the French Royal Academy of Science on the European mapping of China in the eighteenth century. For this, the historical background of French Jesuits mission of mathematicians sent to China by Louis XIV in 1685 was examined. It was found that making astronomical observations for the determination of Chinese geographic coordinates was one important reason of the French Jesuit mission. Secondly, Cassini instructed the longitude determination method to the missionaries and they reported their survey results to the Academy as correspondence member. Thirdly, the cartographic materials they accumulated in the first state were not sufficient to change the map of China. But after 1700, the map of China was broken with the Ptolemaic tradition and the longitude of Peking was moved westward about $20^{\circ}$. This reduced the width of China. Fourthly, the French Jesuit contributed to the making of Huangyu quanlan tu. The manuscipt was sent to France and it was published in d'Anvill's atlas. And his map was used as a standard map of China for more than 100 years.