In the thirty-sixth year of Wanli (1608), 12 volumes were painted by court painters in the Ming Dynasty. The existing one is 12, which is collected by Nanjing Museum. This book used to have six screens, but now it's framed into a big screen. The whole width is 168.7 cm in the longitudinal direction and 380.2 cm in the transverse direction. In the upper right corner of the picture, the title is "Great General Geographic Map". The main map is an oval map of the world with some small astronomical and geographical maps: there is a nine-day map in the upper right corner, a sky map in the lower right corner, an equatorial northern hemisphere map and an eclipse map in the upper left corner, and an equatorial southern hemisphere map and a gas map in the lower left corner; Another ruler picture is attached to the lower left of the main picture. There are 9 sailboats in each ocean, whales, sharks, sea lions and other marine animals 15, and 8 land animals such as rhinoceros, elephant, lion and ostrich in Antarctic continent.
Generally speaking, only three colors are used to copy picture books: pink in North and South America and Antarctica, khaki in Asia and nearly white in Europe and Africa. The edges of a few islands are faint with vermilion color, the mountains are outlined in light green, and the ocean is painted with dense water ripples in dark green, which makes Wang Yang vast. The five continents are written in scarlet letters, and other place names, including country names, are written in ink, with the font size as the difference.
Although there are still many inaccuracies and even mistakes in graphic outline and text description, Lee's map was the most detailed map of the world in East Asia at that time.
The discovery of a copy of the World Geographic Map drawn by Matteo Ricci in China in the Ming Dynasty is enough to prove that the Ming Dynasty already knew the world map.
At the same time, a series of works by Ming Dynasty geographers also show that Ming Dynasty intellectuals have seen great maps of the world and know the specific locations of Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, France and other western countries. Matteo Ricci was contemporary with Huang Zhang (1527- 1608), a famous philosopher in the late Ming Dynasty. This book includes a complete map of land and mountains and a map of land. At the end of Ming Dynasty, Feng Yingjing (1555- 1606) compiled The Whole Map of Mountains, Seas and Lands. Pan Guangzu (life is unknown), a scholar at the end of the Ming Dynasty, edited Compilation of Collection Maps and recorded two Qupu.
Many place names in the world map of Ming Dynasty, including five continents, such as Panorama of Mountains and Seas, Panorama of Mountains and Seas, and Tangled Map, all use the traces of Matteo Ricci's Geographic Map of the Universe, but they are different from Matteo Ricci's Geographic Map of the World and the Universe in geography and concept. It can be seen that at that time, Chinese and western geographers learned from each other and exchanged ideas.