According to the folks here in the geography department (we have the History of Cartography project, the most difinitive and expansive of its kind ever), the map is actually not Chinese- the Chinese cartographers weren't using that kind of map projection at that time. There's a lot more information about it, but apparantly even though the PBS special and the book 1421 were really popular, cartographers and scolars despise it as "bad scholarship." I wish I had more details- I'll have to ask someone.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-01-27 03:03 pm (UTC)