The twelfth-century Chinese historian Zheng Qiao once wrote of the benefits of mingling textual and pictorial descriptions of landscape, describing the images as the warp threads and the written words as the weft.This prompts the thought that any list of books about a relatively unknown country like Myanmar would benefit from a short accompanying list of maps that can be consulted by readers should they wish to find a particular place, orient themselves or seek what has become known as “ground truth”. In this regard, Myanmar-watchers have not always been well served, but the picture is gradually changing as more and more people travel to Myanmar or read books about it.

Maps and charts of Myanmar (or Burma, Burmah, Pegu, Ava or Aracan, depending on the date and source), its near neighbours and surrounding seas have a long history. In European terms alone, they can be traced back at least to the sixteenth century. In this regard, an excellent resource is the monumental Comprehensive Atlas of the Dutch East India Company, published between 2006 and 2010.The final volume includes several maps of the Burmese coastline and river ports like Syriam and Pegu. Anyone interested in looking closer at this early period is also referred to Kay Shelton’s article on the maps of Myanmar made by European cartographers and currently held in the special collections of Northern Illinois University. The article was published in the Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group in 2003.Shelton compiled a bibliography of maps for the same issue.Another important reference is Tin Naing Win’s study of early Burmese maps, with its focus on folding paper parabaik and old cloth maps, most dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Ten beautiful old maps of Myanmar, most dating from the eighteenth century, have been posted on the website of the Burma Boating Company.

After the British began their three-stage conquest of Myanmar in 1824, first the Honourable East India Company and then the British government made a major effort to map the country, the better to bring it under their control, administer it and, it must be said, to exploit its natural resources. As the years passed, these works were updated and expanded using data, drawings and photographs provided by assorted officials, soldiers, explorers, missionaries and adventurers.A local pundit was employed to help find the source of the Irrawaddy River.