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Plan of the city of Manila, Philippines, showing the streets and buildings—categorised as military, civil or religious—around the Pasig River. Maritime routes are highlighted on inset maps of Manila Bay, the Philippines and the world.

Mountains and rivers are the main land features on this map of the Philippines. Steamship routes from Hong Kong, Singapore and New York arrive at Manila. An inset map of Manila Province shows locations of the Philippine–American War (1899–1902).

This map highlights the colonisation of Southeast Asia, showing French Indochina (green), British Burma and Malaya (orange), the Dutch East Indies (pink), and the Spanish Philippines (green). In the region, only Siam (yellow) is independent.

Six maps of locations from the Spanish-American War (1898), including one of the Philippines featuring mountains, rivers, islands and settlements. There is also a world map featuring maritime routes, including around Southeast Asia.

Three maps of the Caroline Islands. One shows colonised areas in Southeast Asia: Dutch East Indies; British North Borneo, British New Guinea; German New Guinea; Philippines (Spain); Portuguese Timor. The route of the Challenger expedition is marked.

This map focuses on maritime Southeast Asia, with coastal settlements, rivers, bays, islands, straits and seas named. Shoals and reefs are marked. The only land feature is the mountains of Borneo, represented by short lines/dashes (called hachures).

This early 19th century map depicts the regions of Asia by colour. The continental regions are green, while the archipelago regions are red, except for New Guinea which is yellow.

A late 18th century maritime map of Southeast Asia, marked with expedition routes including the return of Captain Cook’s HMS Endeavour from Australia in 1770, and Captain Philip Carteret’s circumnavigation expedition in 1768.

These three maps are marked with shoals, rocks, water depth, safe entry points, and anchorage locations, to help ships safely anchor. The sites include the Joseph Freewill Islands (Mapia Atoll, Indonesia) and the coast of Mindanao in the Philippines.

Text on this mid-18th century map notes the dimensions of the islands of maritime Southeast Asia, in length, breadth and square miles (e.g. ‘Java 580 long, 105 broad, & 38,250 sq.’). It also states that the Dutch are the main traders in the region.

Map of the Indian Ocean dominated by a rhumbline network—a web of interconnected lines used to help plot routes—with a compass rose at the centre. At the top there are (incomplete) drawings of people with text in Dutch, French, English and Spanish.

A map by the influential London cartographer, Herman Moll (1654?—1732), showing Southeast Asia in the context of the wider Asian region. Interestingly, the Strait of Malacca is labelled as the ‘Str. of Sincapora’ (Straits of Singapore).