US displays rare map showing China at center of the world
WASHINGTON: A rarely seen 400-year-old map that identified Florida as "the Land of Flowers" and put China at the center of the world went on display yesterday at the Library of Congress.
The map created by Matteo Ricci is considered by many experts to be the first in Chinese to show the Americas. Ricci, a Jesuit missionary from Italy, was the first Westerner to visit what is now Beijing in the late 1500s. Known for introducing Western science to China, Ricci created the map in 1602 at the request of Emperor Wanli.
The map includes pictures and annotations describing different regions of the world. Africa was noted to have the world's highest mountain and longest river. The description of North America is brief with mentions of "humped oxen" or bison, wild horses and a region named "Ka-na-ta."
