Japanese Studies

Aichi Prefectural Library
A large collection of medium to high resolution images of maps and plans of Aichi and Nagoya primarily from the Edo and Meiji periods.

Ashida Map Collection (Meiji University)
Includes 2500 maps of Japan, China, Korea and the world dating from early Edo through Shōwa.  Maps were collected by Koreto Ashida (1877-1960), a pioneer in Japanese topography. Over 90% are regional maps. Search is organized by region and chronology (no free keyword).  High and medium resolution images.  Comprehensive annotation of background information and bibliographical references.

Berkeley Japanese Maps
This online collection of Japanese Historical Maps from the University of California, Berkeley, contains over 1100 images of maps and books of early Japan and the world.

China Historical GIS
Launched through Harvard University in 2001 to provide a GIS platform for scholarly and scientific research.  Japan GIS resources are linked from this homepage, and include numerous historical maps, Tokugawa data, and links to other Japan-related geographical resources.

ECAI: Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative
ECAI Atlas Teams of area specialists, in conjunction with ECAI Technical Teams, are producing an interactive electronic atlas of the world from which selected data from regions, eras, and disciplines can be instantaneously accessed.  Provides access to a wide range of global information, enabling integrated scholarly analysis of primary resources.

Historical Agro-Environment Browsing System (歴史的農業環境閲覧システム).
This system was constructed by the Ecosystem Informatics Division of NIAES from nearly 900 map sheets of the Jinsoku Sokuzu (迅速測図), or Rapid Survey Maps, Japan's first topographic maps depicting large regions.  The Jinsoku Sokuzu cover most of the Kanto Plain surrounding Tokyo. These colorful maps provide detailed land use information for both rural and urban Japan in the 1880s.  A link to Google Earth allows the viewer to overlay them with present day boundaries and landformations.

'Japan City Plans 1:12,500. U.S. Army Map Service, 1945-1946'
High resolution images, including bomb damage - Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

National Diet Library: Dai Nihon enkai yochi zenzu (Complete Survey of the Japanese Coast)
An early Meiji copy of maps done by Ino Tadataka （1745-1818).

Nichibunken Maps 
Space in Historical Perspective.  This database contains information found primarily in maps of early modern (mid-16th-mid-19th centuries) Japanese cities.  Searchable by region, time period, map name, map location, and form (published, hand-drawn, unknown).

Tohoku University 
10 MS maps relating to Japan, enlargeable to high resolution, from the Kano collection. See also Kano collection for a searchable database.

Tokyo University Streets of Edo

UBC's Tokugawa Maps 
The University of British Columbia's Rare Books and Special Collections holds 285 digitized maps of the Japanese Tokugawa period, ca. 1600-1867.  This collection does not contain many government or administrative maps, and focuses primarily on privately published and travel related maps and guides published in Japan during the Tokugawa or Edo period.  Maps can be zoomed.