Among the British Library’s Chinese map holdings, a compact group in the Gordon Papers, no. 32, opens a window onto Suzhou and its waterways in the nineteenth century. The sheets credited to Zhao Xiang date from around 1860 and carry the shelfmark BL(Or) Or.2338[32]. They range from prefecture-level surveys to close studies of suburban rivers.
Zhao Xiang’s maps include:
- Map of Suzhou Prefecture, 44 × 52 cm
- Map of Suzhou Prefecture, 63 × 117 cm
- Map of the Outskirts of Suzhou: attached suburbs outside the Chang and Xu gates, 35 × 59 cm
- Map of the Waterways in the Suburbs of Suzhou, 48 × 77 cm
- Map of the Waterways in the North Outskirts of Suzhou, 73 × 82 cm
- Map of the Waterways in Suzhou Prefecture, 54 × 58 cm
- Map of the Waterways Between Suzhou and Wuxi, 50 × 55 cm
The same shelfmark holds one anonymous item from about 1860: Map of Songjiang, Jiading, Liuhe and Taicang, 56 × 49 cm. Its subject extends beyond Suzhou proper and points toward the wider network of towns and waterways in the region.
An earlier official drawing, dated 1835, appears under BL[Ms] Add.Ms.16361. It is titled Military Map of Tailing Sub-prefecture (Taicang Zhou), showing the along-river water conditions, ports, and garrison boundaries. The manuscript format and military subject set it apart from the Zhao Xiang sheets.
The latest item in this group is a printed provincial atlas: Zhu Kebao and Chen Jing’s General Atlas of Jiangsu Province, 1895, BL(Map) 15268.e.8. It runs to three volumes, each 23 × 33 cm, and shifts the scale from city and suburban waterways to the province as a whole.
In the British Library’s notation, Or refers to Asian & African Studies, Ms to Manuscripts, and Map to Maps. Taken together, the items record Suzhou’s urban outline, its river links, and the larger Jiangsu setting in which those connections operated.