In the sixteenth century the Italian missionary, Matteo Ricci, brought to China a European map of the world showing the new discoveries in America. The Chinese were glad to learn about America, but one point in the map offended them. Since it split the earth's surface down the Pacific, China appeared off at the right-hand edge; whereas the Chinese thought of themselves as literally the “Middle Kingdom,” which should be in the center of the map. Ricci pacified them by drawing another map, splitting the Atlantic instead, so that China appeared more central; and maps are still commonly drawn that way in that part of the world.

Europeans of course have clung to the first type of map, showing Europe in the upper center; while the commonest maps in North America show the U.S.A. in that post of honor, even at the cost of splitting a continent in two. The temptation not only to put one's own land in the center of the map, but one's own people in the center of history, seems to be universal.

The most famous case of this is indeed that of the “Middle Kingdom.” Many Chinese used to suppose that the Temple of Heaven at the Emperor's capital, Peking, marked the exact center of the earth's surface. To be sure, Chinese scholars even in the Middle Ages were aware that China could not be said to be mathematically central; they knew the general lay of Europe and Africa and the Indian Ocean, and a writer could remark that the “center” of the earth was along the equator.