Everything about In Tadataka totally explained
Inō Tadataka (伊能 忠敬
February 11 1745 -
May 17 1818) was a
Japanese surveyor and
cartographer. He is known for completing the first map of
Japan created using modern surveying techniques.
Early life
Inō was born in
Kujukuri, a coastal village in
Kazusa Province, in what is now
Chiba Prefecture, and was adopted (aged seventeen) by the prosperous Inō family of
Sawara (now a district of
Katori, Chiba), a town in
Shimo-Usa Province. He ran the family business, expanding its
sake brewing and
rice-trading concerns, until he retired at the age of 49. At this time he moved to
Edo and became a pupil of
astronomer Takahashi Yoshitoki, from whom he learned Western astronomy,
geography, and
mathematics.
Mission
In
1800, after nearly five years of study, the
Shogunate permitted Inō to perform a survey of the country using his own money. This task, which consumed the remaining seventeen years of his life, covered the entire
coastline and some of the interior of each of the Japanese home
islands. During this period Inō reportedly spent 3,736
days making measurements (and travelled 34,913
kilometres), stopping regularly to present the Shogun with maps reflecting his survey's progress. He produced a number of detailed
maps (some at a scale of 1:36,000, others at 1:216,000) of select parts of Japan, mostly in
Kyūshū and
Hokkaidō.
Inō's magnum opus, his 1:216,000 map of the entire coastline of Japan, remained unfinished at his death in 1818, but was completed by his surveying team in
1821. An atlas collecting all of his survey work, entitled
Dai Nihon Enkai Yochi Zenzu (大日本沿海與地全図 maps of Japan's coastal area), was published that year. It showed the entire country on eight pages at 1:216,000, 214 pages of select coastal areas at 1:36,000, and three pages of fine detail at 1:432,000. The
Inō-zu (Inō's maps), many of which are accurate to 1/1000 th of a degree, remained the definitive maps of Japan for nearly a century, and maps based on his work were in use as late as
1924.
In addition to his maps, Inō produced several scholarly works on surveying and
mathematics, including
Chikyu sokuenjutsu mondo and
Kyukatsu en hassenho.
Commemoration
Inō is celebrated as one of the architects of modern Japan. A museum, dedicated to his memory, was opened in his former home in Sawara, and in
1996 was designated a National Historic Site. In November
1995 the Japanese government issued a commemorative 80
Yen postage stamp, showing Inō's
portrait and a section of his map of Edo. Most of the complete copies of the atlas have been lost or destroyed (often by fire), although a mostly-complete copy of the large-scale map was discovered in the collection of the U.S.
Library of Congress in
2001.
Further Information
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