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Navigation chart of part of the South China Sea leading to the eastern entrance of the Singapore Strait. Features bathymetry (sea depth), anchor points, shoals and other obstructions, landmark hills, and detailed explanatory notes.

Navigation chart of part of the South China Sea leading to the eastern entrance of the Singapore Strait. Features bathymetry (sea depth), anchor points, shoals and other obstructions, landmark hills, and detailed explanatory notes.

Made for ‘A History of Java’ by Sir Stamford Raffles, this map includes a list of administrative districts with their populations, and four inset maps of harbours. Another inset map shows rocks and minerals, mountains and volcanoes, and teak forests.

Made for ‘A History of Java’ by Sir Stamford Raffles, this map includes a list of administrative districts with their populations, and four inset maps of harbours. Another inset map shows rocks and minerals, mountains and volcanoes, and teak forests.

This early 19th century hand-drawn map of Manila Bay has detailed instructions in Spanish on how to enter the bay, and the port at Cavite. Bathymetry (water depth), the mouths of rivers, and landmark mountains are shown to aid navigation.

Southeast Asia is on the last sheet of this map of Asia. The South China Sea is labelled ‘Malayan Sea’. Small islands, shoals and reefs are shown. A label in Cochin China (Vietnam) reads ‘mountains inhabited by the uncivilized people called Kemoys’.

A hand-drawn map designed to aid navigation around the southern coast of Luzon and the islands of the central Philippines. It features side views of coastal hills and mountains (‘elevations’) to use as landmarks, as well as towns, shoals and reefs.

A Japanese Buddhist map (or copy of one) with the distinctive triangular land mass (wide at the top, narrow at the bottom) and the central ‘whirlpool’ Lake Anavatapta (aka Lake Anotatta). Southeast Asia is shown as a scattering of light grey islands.

This map of Asia, from an atlas by the German cartographer Karl von Spruner, is colour-coded to show territorial regions in Asia from the 6th to the 9th centuries. Thailand is labelled 'Siang-koue' and Vietnam is 'Tschn-tschin'.

This late 18th century map of Asia uses colour to differentiate various regions, with mainland Southeast Asia in blue, and maritime Southeast Asia in yellow, red, green and blue.

Maritime routes had to be adjusted in response to the changing monsoon seasons, as is seen on this late 18th century map of the Indian Ocean. Drawings of the heads of children blowing—called ‘wind-heads’—are used to indicate wind direction.

Navigation chart of the Sunda Strait, showing bathymetry (sea depth), shoals and reefs, landmarks, and a rhumbline network. Notes record good anchorages, sources of water and supplies etc. Inset map of the Zutphen Islands off the coast of Sumatra.