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The river that made the map. The Kerülen Basin in Qing Mongolia

La rivière qui traça la carte. Le bassin de la rivière Kerülen en Mongolie des Qing
Anne-Sophie Pratte

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Cet article interroge la manière dont l’environnement riverain et la création de cartes géographiques se sont recoupés dans la Mongolie septentrionale des Qalq-a. Je me penche sur une carte manuscrite mongole qui représente le territoire de l’ayimaγ Sečen qan, se focalisant sur le bassin de la rivière Kerülen. Datée de l’année 1780, cette carte a été préservée à la Librairie nationale centrale de Mongolie. Elle constitue simultanément une carte politique, topographique, et une illustration de la variété de la faune, de la flore et du relief avec en son centre la rivière Kerülen. Ancrées dans un système de savoir local, les informations contenues dans cette carte donnent un aperçu de la manière dont les Mongols de cette région interagirent avec leur environnement.

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Earlier versions of this article were presented at the New Directions Workshop at Harvard University in 2022, the Mongolian Language Culture and Contact at Charles University in 2022, the Association for Asian Studies 2022, and the Women’s workshop at Georgetown University in Qatar in 2023. I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. I am grateful to Isabelle Charleux, Bryan Miller, Jonathan Schlesinger, Sarah Bramao-Ramos, Rui Hua, Huiying Chen, Karine Walther, Nadya Sbaiti, Trish Kahle, Christopher P. Atwood, Mark C. Eliott, Ian J. Miller who enriched this paper with thoughtful suggestions. Special thanks to Sylvie Falardeau, Ben and Forrest Meader for their dedicated work on the illustrations.

Figure 1a. The Kerülen River Map, Sečen qan ayimaγ, 1780. Paper on ink, 94 by 64 cm

Figure 1a. The Kerülen River Map, Sečen qan ayimaγ, 1780. Paper on ink, 94 by 64 cm
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 694k)

© courtesy of the National Library of Mongolia

Figure 1b. Geographical area corresponding to the 1780 Kerülen River Map

Figure 1b. Geographical area corresponding to the 1780 Kerülen River Map
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 607k)

© Anne-Sophie Pratte

  • 1 For example, on the eastern side, there is the Buyir Lake, identified as “Buyir dalai”, which is si (...)
  • 2 Note on transcription: I used the Mostaert-Vladimisrtov system to transcribe Classical Mongolian.
  • 3 Banners and ayimaγs were the main territorial and administrative units of Qing Mongolia. The Qing Q (...)

1This paper examines the type of geographical and environmental knowledge a group of Mongol mapmakers produced as they drew a regional map of their land. To do so, it introduces one single local Mongol map, using the methodological lenses of environmental history and historical cartography. This map is dated from 1780 and held at the National Library of Mongolia (see fig. 1a). It measures 97 by 64 centimetres and was drawn with fine black ink on coarse paper. It does not have a title, but we can establish that the map corresponds to the Sečen qan ayimaγ in eastern Qalq-a Mongolia because of the various inscriptions about adjacent territories (see fig. 1b)1. This map will be designated as the Kerülen2 River Map for the purposes of this paper, as most of its territorial extent corresponds to the Pacific River Basin in Eastern Mongolia (see fig. 2)3.

  • 4 This paper borrows insights from Ruth Mostern’s work that uses archaeological findings, historical (...)

2The overlap between the hydrological composition of this region and the territorial depiction on the Kerülen River Map is not accidental. It reflects the centrality of the Kerülen River (Cyr. Mo. Herlen) in the mapmaking process; the features of the Kerülen River guided the aesthetic, orientation, textual inscriptions, and symmetry of the map. The Kerülen River divided the mapped space into two halves horizontally, traversing the land as a pair of uninterrupted parallel lines that stretched horizontally in the centre and bent both up and down at the end. It acted as an axis of symmetry, dictating how geographical features and place names on either shore of the river were oriented. North of the river, place names and geographical features followed a top-down orientation; south of the river, the lines of text followed a bottom-up orientation (see fig. 3). To depict the river as perfectly horizontal and central, the map’s author had to adjust the cardinal orientation of the map to correspond with the direction of the river. Instead of being oriented to the north (or to the south), the map was made to follow a NW-SE axis with NW on top, an orientation that matches the angle of the Kerülen River. The river not only gave its orientation to the map and informed its design, but it also shaped how banners and sub-banner units were spatially situated within the Sečen qan ayimaγ4.

3The river was not passively transposed onto the two-dimensional plane of the map. Instead, the Kerülen River was itself an agent, one that dictated the shape, orientation, and design of the 1780 map. In other words, mapmakers intentionally framed the map around the river; if the waters of the river had flowed in a different direction, or if there had been no river at all, the map would have had a different format, orientation, and scope. The process of mapmaking was not driven by the abstraction of the landscape; the Kerülen riverine environment shaped the structure and aesthetics of the map.

Figure 2. The Kerülen River as a part of the Pacific Basin in Eastern Mongolia

Figure 2. The Kerülen River as a part of the Pacific Basin in Eastern Mongolia
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 641k)

© Anne-Sophie Pratte

Figure 3. Reversed perspectives north and south of the Kerülen River

Figure 3. Reversed perspectives north and south of the Kerülen River
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 16k)

© Anne-Sophie Pratte

  • 5 The text is most likely dated from 1252. For a discussion on the dating of the Secret History of th (...)
  • 6 The Qalq-a Mongols are a sub-ethnic group that constitutes the majority of today’s Republic of Mong (...)

4The influence of the Kerülen River on cultural and material production was not limited to the Qing period (1644-1911) or to cartographic objects; as has been shown in archaeological findings, the Kerülen River also shaped the built-in structures of Xiongnu City walls. The Xiongnu Empire occupied the area from the last centuries BC to the 2nd century AD (Honeychurch & Amartuvchin 2006). Moreover, the Kerülen River even had a central place in the Secret History of the Mongols (c. 13th century), an epic chronicle on the rise of Chinggis Khan (Atwood 2007, pp. 1-48, 2023)5. This water body has thus long been intertwined with the politics of this region, a close relationship that transcends political units and links historical periods. To fully situate the map, therefore, one has to link it to the longue durée history of the region while simultaneously redefining the usual geographical units of analysis to follow the map’s focus on the Sečen qan ayimaγ, a territorial and political unit this paper also refers to as eastern Qalq-a6.

  • 7 Works on Mongol historical maps include Haltod 1966; Heissig 1978; Futaki & Kamimura 2005; Kamimura (...)

5While the extensive scholarship on Qing imperial cartography has focused on exchanges between European cartographers and the Qing court, the contribution of Mongols to regional mapping remains poorly understood7. Though early studies on cartography by Joseph Needham emphasised the influence European cartography had on the Chinese cartographic tradition, this view was challenged by Cordell Yee who argued that while the Qing state did incorporate Western surveying methods to compile atlases, they also maintained traditional mapping methods; the Qing kept preexisting techniques that they saw as being more suited to their needs (Yee 1994; Needham 1959). Since this, scholars have demonstrated that the production of geographical information about Inner Asia was a fundamental part of the process of incorporating such regions into the Qing Empire, a process that resonated with concomitant processes elsewhere in the early modern world (Akerman 2009; Yee 1994; Elliott 2000; Cams 2017; Millward 1999).

6Recent scholarship has sought to move beyond the dichotomy of “Western influence” and “Chinese tradition”, arguing that mapping technologies should be seen as global, as they were constituted through dynamics of exchange and interconnection in the early modern world (Hostetler 2001; Morar 2018). However, the present emphasis on large-scale atlases and mapping practices commissioned by the state has obscured alternative systems of cartographic representation, especially those that stem from pastoralist populations. Such populations also participated in knowledge production. In fact, local Mongols produced more than a thousand maps of banners and ayimaγs during the 19th century. Anchored in a different geographical ontology, the Mongols’ vision of what constituted valuable geographical knowledge diverged from the type of unified large-scale view sought by the Qing central state.

  • 8 This recent volume describes itself as a first attempt to use historical maps as sources to study e (...)
  • 9 Evenden 2004 is an example of a transnational history of a river.
  • 10 The Organic Machine is one of the early works constituting the “river turn” in environmental histor (...)

7The cartographic depiction of nature constitutes a form of engagement with the environment that is embedded in cultural symbols and social relations (Brosnan & Akerman 2021)8. Mapmaking, as it is informed by environmental knowledge of a given place and time, intersects with the mapmaker’s perspectives on natural elements such as rivers, mountains, fauna, flora, and land cover. The cartographic depiction of riverine environments thus invites place-based narratives that emphasise local knowledge. Such narratives often adopt spatial units and periodisation that are different from the usual category of the nation-state, as well as periodisation that differs from traditional chronologies, for rivers flow through international boundaries and their existence neither start nor stop with political eras9. Constituting nexuses between nature and society, the central place of rivers in cartographic representations is anchored in ontologies that view nature and culture as interdependent and indissociable (White 1995; Evenden 2018)10.

  • 11 Recent books that have put Asian rivers at the centre of history include Mostern 2021; Zhang 2016; (...)

8While river and water management have been understood as being central to political systems and environmental changes in agrarian regions of Asia, steppe rivers typically receive less attention than their agrarian counterparts11. Biological components such as flooding patterns and fish species tend to be the focus of studies on steppe rivers, while the political and social dynamics of human interaction with rivers at different periods in time are less studied in the case of pastoralist regions. Scientists have described the Kerülen River Basin, for example, as a “pristine ecosystem” characterised by minimal direct human impact, an assessment that completely marginalises how humans have interacted with this riparian ecosystem (Brutsaert & Sugita 2008). While it might be true that pastoralism does not require the types of complex infrastructure involved in irrigation that have shaped the riverine environments of agricultural societies, access to surface water remains critical for pastoralist groups. Access is important for the sustainability of livestock and, as such, access to water still defines social dynamics such as migration patterns and resource management. This is illustrated in the cartographic representation of eastern Qalq-a depicted in the Kerülen River Map (see figs 1, 3): the Kerülen River constituted the very centre of this region, helped situate banners in relations to one another, and acted as the structuring element of the local geography.

9It is worth noting that the Kerülen River Map is by no means representative of all the Mongol maps that were produced during the Qing. Local Mongol maps display a high degree of regional and temporal variation. Their size, orientation, colour, overall aesthetic design, and degree of standardisation follow patterns of change related to both larger geopolitical dynamics and changing state-society relations (Pratte 2021). Given that early Qing Mongol maps were embedded in local geography and explicitly eschewed patterns of standardisation, trying to find a “representative” Mongol map or endeavoring to create a clear typology of Mongol mapmaking are risk of oversimplifying diverse mapmaking that existed. This Kerülen River Map is thus a singular object that reveals a set of perspective on eastern Qalq-a that are geographically and temporally localised.

10This paper begins by discussing the process of production, authorship, aesthetic and content of the map. Drawing on literature from the natural sciences, it contextualises the geographical and environmental knowledge included in the map, establishing that the production of this map was also a process of documentation of the natural world. The next section brings archaeological and textual sources from earlier periods to show that the view of the natural world that positioned the Kerülen River at the centre existed centuries prior to the Qing era. Thirdly, I illustrate the political dimension of this map as it intersected with its topographical layer; the Kerülen River was used as the main geographical marker to localise Qing banners, as the map also conveyed military information. Overall, this study brings together a visual analysis of the map, archival documents from the National Archives of Mongolia, textual records of earlier periods on the main rivers and mountains of this region, and scientific literature on the hydrology, fauna, and flora of this ecosystem.

Figure 4. Map of the Sečen qan ayimaγ, 1780

Figure 4. Map of the Sečen qan ayimaγ, 1780
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 513k)

© National Library of Mongolia

Letter

Name in Mongolian

Translation or place name equivalent in modern day geography

A

Quva obuγadu qaraγul

Frontier post with yellow obuγ-a (Cyr. Mo. ovoo)

B

Dalai

Kölün Lake

C

Buyir dalai

Buyir Lake

D

Bars qota

Kerülen Bars

E

ǰasaγ Sonom ene qosiγu nige sumu, arban ere

This banner of the ǰasaγ Sonom has one sumu and ten able-bodied men

F

Kerülen γoul

Kerülen River

G

ene ǰerge γaǰar Solon Daγur luγ-a ǰiq-a neyileǰüküi

These territories connect with the border of the Solon Daγur

H

Tngri-yin tedkügsen-ü döčin tabuduγar on-u ǰiruγ-a

Map of the 45th year of the Qianlong era (1780)

I

Qongqur aγula

Qongqur Mountain

J

sorung

Mountain or rock towering above other mountains

K

mön Tüsiyetü qan ayimaγ-un ǰasaγ Urǰin-u qosiγu-luγ-a ǰiq-a neyileǰüküi

This connects with the border of the banner of the Urjin ǰasaγ of the Tüsiyetü qan ayimaγ

L

ǰasaγ Гončuγjab ene qosiγu nige sumu

The banner of the ǰasaγ Гončuγjab has one sumu (Гončuγjab ruled over the Mergen güng Banner from 1737-1780)

M

ǰasaγ Senggerabdan ene qosiγu γucin naiman ere

The banner of the ǰasaγ Senggerabdan has 38 men (the ǰasaγ Senggerabdan ruled over the Sergüleng güng Banner from 1779 to 1789).

N

ǰasaγ čoγsomǰab ene qosiγu nige sumu

The banner of the ǰasaγ čoγsomǰab has one sumu (The ǰasaγ čoγsomǰab ruled over the Baγatur beyile Banner from 1770 to 1809).

O

ǰasaγ čerintasi ene qosiγu nige sumu qorin ere

The banner of the ǰasaγ čerintasi has one sumu and twenty men (the ǰasaγ čerintasi ruled over the Erke güng Banner from 1777 to 1787).

P

Quva nuur [naγur] – nuur

Quva Lake and Lake

Q

Usu ügei γobi

Desert Without Water

R

Гurban dörüge čilaγu

Three Stirrups Rocks

S

Yeke Kentei qan

Kentei (Cyr. Mo. Hentii) Mountain Range

A topographical and political map

  • 12 The map was written entirely in Mongolian and had no seals except for those added by the National L (...)
  • 13 This map only includes a small portion of Dariγanγ-a, which totalled 23 000 square kilometers and s (...)

11In 1780, the Qing state sought to obtain local knowledge on Qalq-a Mongolia by recruiting ayimaγ officials. Helped by local princes (vang-ud), the Kerülen River Map that resulted from the efforts of these ayimaγ officials is an early extant regional map of Qing Mongolia (see fig. 4). It has never been studied or written about before, nor has it been referenced previously. On the the top right section, the date is indicated as “Map of 45th year of the Qianlong era” (1780) (Tngri-yin tedkügsen-ü döčin tabuduγar on-u ǰiruγ-a)12. In addition to Sečen qan, the map also includes the frontier zone between Mongolia and Russia in the upper section, and it lists the frontier posts (qaraγul). In the lower central section it also mentions Dariγanγ-a, the imperial herds territory (see fig. 4)13.

Figure 5. Junction of the Kerülen River and the Kölün Lake

Figure 5. Junction of the Kerülen River and the Kölün Lake
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 387k)

© courtesy of the National Library of Mongolia

  • 14 “One packet with a letter of instruction to dispatch to our office a few princes among those who kn (...)
  • 15 J̌isiy-a ǰangǰun-ača, nutuγ-un dangsa ǰiruγ-i todurqai üiledüged, in Qariyatu ayimaγ-un nutuγ tuqai (...)
  • 16 On this 1780 map, the river is written as Kerülün. In this paper, I use the more common spelling of (...)

12Listed among the documents that were archived with the Kerülen River Map, there is a letter of instructions ordering “to dispatch to our office [the ayimaγ] a few princes among those who know clearly about the old and new lands”14 in order to make a clear “cartographic record of the land” (nutuγ-un dangsa ǰiruγ)15. As a result of this joint enterprise between ayimaγ officials and local princes, the contents and format of the map are multidimensional, and the map includes information on a variety of animal species, land cover, flora, and the relief of mountains. The map can be described as both a political map and a topographical one, as it invites viewers to grasp the political configuration of the steppe while also giving them a sense of the ecosystems of eastern Qalq-a Mongolia with the Kerülen River always featuring prominently in the centre16.

13The map magnifies rivers, exaggerating their parallel trajectories and their relative size. The Kerülen is part of a cluster of rivers that originate in the Kentei Mountains, which are depicted in the top left corner of the map (see fig. 6). These rivers are drawn as a series of two parallel lines, and each pair represents a set of riverbanks. The linearity of the riverbanks simplifies the meanderings of the rivers. The Kerülen appears as straightens, which gives a particular sense of geometry to the map. This becomes particularly visible when the 1780 Kerülen River map is juxtaposed with a modern-day map of the Kerülen Basin, as illustrated on figure 6. When the rivers are highlighted on both, the simplified way in which the author of the Kerülen River Map represented the natural elements becomes clear. On the 1780 Kerülen Map, the Kerülen River, connects the Kentei and the Kölün Lake in a perfectly linear way; the author of the map even removed the large kink that characterises the section between the ruined city of Bars qota and the Kölün Lake, downstream of what is today the city of Choibalsan (Dornod Province).

14Moreover, secondary rivers mirror the linearity and orientation of the Kerülen. Their flow is parallel to one another, something that highlights their interconnections and emphasises the unity of the watersheds. For instance, the Quraqu, the Ulǰa, and the Kerülen appear as strictly parallel, and their flow aligns with one another. The upper streams of the Onan, the Balǰi, and the Qaraγul are also symmetrical to each other before they converge. A similar pattern characterises the representation of lakes. Lakes are each represented as a circle devoid of natural irregularities, which also displays a form of symmetrical geometry. The Dalai and Güng Lakes are perfectly circular shapes that face each other, while the Buyir Lake is in the shape of an oval, a depiction perhaps informed by its natural elongated form. The use of geometrical forms and parallelism suggests that the map is employing a form of symbology to achieve a level of coherence in how water bodies are represented.

Figure 6. Juxtaposition of the historical and the modern maps

Figure 6. Juxtaposition of the historical and the modern maps
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 879k)

© Anne-Sophie Pratte

Figure 7. The Amur Basin

Figure 7. The Amur Basin
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 830k)

© Anne-Sophie Pratte

Figure 8. Landcover of the Kerülen Basin

Figure 8. Landcover of the Kerülen Basin
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 567k)

© Anne-Sophie Pratte

15The steppe, which the Kerülen flows into after it descends from the Kentei’s high peaks, constitutes the baseline of the map. The authors of the map did not specifically mark grassy areas; they used blank spaces to signify grassland. Most of the land cover in the Kerülen basin consists of grass, as is illustrated on a modern-day land cover map of the region (see fig. 8). The authors thus expected viewers to see blank spaces and mentally “fill” them with grass as they read the map. In contrast, some arid patches are labelled as “γobi” (desert) and hills are marked. Mountains are concentrated on the north bank and interspersed on the south shore, a more arid and flat area. The Kerülen seems to break up the mountains that face each other across the river.

16Described by environmental scholars as “the lifeline of the eastern steppe”, the Kerülen River originates on the southern slopes of the Kentei Mountain Range at an altitude of 1750 metres above sea level (Brutsaert &Sugita 2008). Its upper segment flows south for 250 km, then bifurcates east just before reaching the dry steppe downstream. It then crosses the steppe of Eastern Mongolia and empties into the Dalai Lake (Mo. Kölün Lake) in modern day-Inner Mongolia (China). Overall, it flows a long way through the steppe before connecting to the Onan River, and reaching Inner Mongolia (see fig. 7). Its waters then flow into the Amur River and, finally, it discharges into the Pacific Ocean. The Kerülen thus forms part of the Pacific Ocean basin, one of the three river basins of Mongolia that borders the Artic and the Central Asian internal basins (see figs 2, 7) (Kaus 2018). In total, the river runs a distance of 1 254 km, passing through a mixture of grassland, forest steppe populated by Siberian larch, and interspersed areas of white birch.

  • 17 This is, as might be expected, lower than that of rivers in China proper. For instance, the flood f (...)

17The Kerülen River Basin is considered a site of high biodiversity, being home to more than forty endangered bird species and thirty-eight species of fish. This is due to the isolation of the river and lack of connectivity with other rivers, which had led to high genetic diversity of fish species, for the gene flow has remained contained within this one river and not shared with connected rivers. The Siberian taimen, for example, the largest salmonid in the world that grows up to six feet long and weighs more than 100 pounds, is just one of many rare species that inhabits the river (Kaus et al. 2019). It lives in the upper part of the Kerülen River in the summer and migrates downstream in the fall, starting from September. On the riverbanks, one finds poplar and willow trees that become submerged in the water of the river when the snow melts in the spring (Li et al. 2007). Narrow in its upper reach and wider in the lower steppe basin, the Kerülen River has an average width of 0,7-0,9 km in the Kentei Mountain Range area, and a maximum of 10-15 km downstream (Dambaravjaa et al. 2004, p. 3). Though its depth is irregular, it is generally deemed too shallow for navigation. Analyses of sediment deposited over the past 1 500 years have shown that the river floods on average once every 72 years and that these floods are influenced by summer monsoons in East Asia (Kim et al. 2017; Yu et al. 2009)17.

  • 18 The flora in Mongolia includes four species of Cotoneaster including one that is native to Mongolia (...)
  • 19 See Ligaa for a description of the Cotoneaster melanocarpa and Mongolica’s usages in Mongolian medi (...)

18The biodiversity and composition of fauna and flora were marked on the 1780 Kerülen River Map using toponyms. More than mere signifiers, these place names conveyed a wealth of information and reflected the mapmaker’s knowledge of the territory. For example, one hill was named Irγayitu (En. with Cotoneaster) (Holzer et al. 2013, pp. 265-72; Gendaram 2019, pp. 1-6)18, a name that reflects one of the plant species growing on the hill, as shown in figure 9. The Cotoneaster melanocarpa shrub can grow up to two metres tall in height and bears tart sweet and sour fruits. The fruits and shoots of the Cotoneaster mongolica are used in traditional Mongolian and Tibetan medicine for various purposes, including styptic uses to stop nasal haemorrhage, and excessive menstruations, as well as diarrhoea, and inflammation in the digestive system (Holzer et al. 2013; Ligaa 1996, p. 222)19. Other medicinal plants also feature on the map, such as the Cargana or Camel’s tail plant (Mo. altaγ-a) in the lower left corner of the map, in the Gobi area. Cargana is a type of shrub, well adapted to drought, that can grow on the rocky slopes of China and Mongolia. Its medicinal uses are also documented in Tibetan, Mongolian, and traditional Chinese medicine (Roubin 2009; Kakorin et al. 2018, pp. 531-535; Magsar et al. 2018). Names of wild animals also appear on the map, such as is a hill named “with saiga antelopes” (Mo. ǰürtei). Today an endangered type of ungulate, the saiga antelope is known for its extensive migrations across steppe areas. These toponyms suggest that the mapmaker knew places on the map in terms of their biological composition, which was reflected in how the landscape was read, translated, and transposed onto a map.

Figure 9. Irγayitu

Figure 9. Irγayitu
Agrandir Original (png, 147k)

© Anne-Sophie Pratte

19The land cover, soil, and geological formations of the mapped region are also extremely diverse, something else that was reflected in descriptive toponyms. The Kentei Mountain Range, which constitutes the southernmost tip of the Siberian permafrost region, links the permafrost area to the prairies of central Mongolia. It therefore marks the frontier between two major ecosystems. Its land cover consists of Siberian taiga Larix, Betula forests, and grasslands, in addition to varied types of rocks (Orkhonselenge et al. 2021, p. 562). This diversity of land cover and geological formations is illustrated in the wide range of words used on the Kerülen River Map, which includes but is not limited to adarγ-a (unevenness of the terrain), köbči (ridge), iruγul (mountain side), öndür (height), qadatai (rocky), qongqur (cavity), qada (cliff), toluγai (peak), eriyen (patchy), usu ügei γobi (dry desert), čilaγu (rock). Such toponyms not only identified specific places, but the descriptive nature of these toponyms also made clear the very topography of the region. The location and geological composition of the Kentei range at the intersection of these two ecosystems thus informed the language used to translate its morphological component into words and shapes.

  • 20 The worm’s eye view implies that the viewer of the map is like a worm laying on the middle of the m (...)
  • 21 This worm’s (or duck’s) eye perspective is characteristic of early maps that were not yet standardi (...)

20The spatial arrangement of geographical features and the plurality of perspectives used to draw them were tied to the specificities of the local relief. The geographical features were not all aligned towards one single point above the map, as is the case for most maps today, which typically follow the “bird’s eye view” where the viewer is like a bird flying over the map. This 1780 Kerülen River Map was drawn from what authors of Japanese cartography have coined as a “worm’s eye view”, that is the perspective from the ground on the centre of the map (Wigen 2010, p. 83)20. Alternatively, we could even say that the viewer was a Kerülen River duck dweller, swimming through the river, looking at the shores and gazing at mountain peaks in the distance – thereby suggesting a “duck’s eye view”. The duck could also fly up to look out at the edges of the territory marked by frontier posts (qaraγul)21. The Kerülen River map is thus characterised by a plurality of perspectives whereby geographical features point in multiple directions, depending on where they are situated in relation to the Kerülen River, which even warrants alternative cartographic terminologies to reflect these.

  • 22 As Ashworth reminds us, the convention of consistently orienting maps to the north did not become a (...)

21The orientation of the Kerülen River Map follows the hydrological composition of the main river of the eastern Qalq-a steppe, which generates a very localised form of cartographic representation that was aligned with the relief. This particular orientation is one of many different types of orientation that existed among Mongol maps of the Qing era22. Possible orientations for such maps included S-N, N-S, and NW-SE. Only over time did maps become systematically oriented towards the north, following instructions from Qing officials in Beijing.

  • 23 The name “Source of the three rivers” appears in the Secret History of the Mongols as the ancestral (...)
  • 24 The first lines of the Secret History of the Mongols read as follows: “The origins of Cinggis Qa’ a (...)

22Besides rivers, mountains also feature prominently on the 1780 Kerülen River Map. It is no coincidence that the map is meant to be read starting from the source of the Kerülen River, the Kentei Mountain Range in the upper left corner, which constitutes one of the focal points of the map (see fig. 10). This top left section, which illustrates the Kentei Mountains, a range extending from the Russian border on the northeast to the Mount Bogd near modern-day Ulaanbaatar on the southwest, is by far the densest area of the map. This mountain range, also known as the Source of the Three Rivers (Γurban mören-ü eke), is the source of the major rivers of Mongolia23. While the Onan, Tula, and Kerülen are the main ones, the Qaraγ-a, Irüge, Küder, and Terelji Rivers also originate in the heart of these mountain ranges. These rivers play a vital role in supplying northern and eastern Mongolia with surface water resources, especially in the valleys surrounding the mount. The Kentei Mountains is also home to the mount Burqan qaldun, where Chinggis Khan and his ancestors originate from according to the Secret History of the Mongols (Atwood 2023, p. 72; Rachewiltz 1997, pp. 239-256; Allsen 1996, pp. 116-136)24. Readers may move their gaze right from the Kentei Mountain Range, and reach the end point of the map, which corresponds to the Kölün Lake. This lake, the final basin of the Kerülen River, is the eastern most point of Qalq-a and serves as its frontier (see fig. 5). The Kentei Range and the Kölün Lake constitute prominent landmarks that frame the Kerülen River on both sides, orienting the reading of the map and aligning the viewer’s gaze with the river itself.

Figure 10. Source of the rivers in the Kentei Mountain Range

Figure 10. Source of the rivers in the Kentei Mountain Range
Agrandir Original (png, 660k)

© Anne-Sophie Pratte

23The curvy irregular black lines on the Kerülen River Map illustrate the geological structure of the Kentei Mountain Range. The Kentei’s peaks are characterised by a diversity of shapes and rock formations including dome-shape tops, peaks overlooking deep gorges and cliffs. The mountains also shelter gently sloping valleys formed by glaciers. Its stone formations consist of ancient granite from the Palaeozoic era (the earliest geological age of the earth spanning from 541 to 252 million years ago) and from the Mesozoic era (from 252 to 66 million years ago), as well as carboniferous rocks (Orkhonselenge & Uuganzaya 2018, pp. 308-319). This mountain range also marks a transitional zone between the central Siberian taiga and the open steppe. Its location as the intersection of two vegetation zones leads to a high degree of diversity in its flora (Dulamsuren et al. 2005, pp. 411-426). The hills, cliffs, and high peaks that make up the Kentei Mountains are indicated with lines of various shapes and sizes, each varied to indicate the width and elevation of specific mountains, as illustrated on figure 11. Curvy regular shapes suggest conic mountain peaks visible into the distance, while rectangular shapes evoke stone formations. Dots and tight wavy shapes suggest denser vegetation, and angular lines illustrate rocky cliffs. Taken together, the variety of shapes and traits makes the variegated geology of the Kentei Mountain Range clear.

Figure 11. The relief of the Kentei Mountain Range on the 1780 map

Figure 11. The relief of the Kentei Mountain Range on the 1780 map
Agrandir Original (png, 393k)

© Anne-Sophie Pratte

The centrality of the river in earlier periods

24The orientation of the Kerülen River not only inspired the design of the 1780 Kerülen River Map; it also shaped artefacts of earlier periods. There exist hundreds of archaeological sites in the Kerülen River Valley that span from the Stone Age to the Mongol Empire period. These sites illustrate the diverse economic, social, and religious activities taking place within Kerülen River basin, which was occupied by the Xiongnu from the 3rd century BC, the Turk and Uyghur Empires (550-840), Balhae (698-926), Kitan (Liao Empire 907-1126), Jürchen (Jin Empire 1115-1234), and Mongols. Given the high number of monuments constructed along the Kerülen River, archaeologists have highlighted this region as a significant place where social, political, ritual and economic institutions converged (Miller et al. 2019, pp. 267-286). The Kerülen Basin marked the eastern edge of the Xiongnu Empire and hosted a wide array of economic and social activities. In addition to pastoralism and small-scale agriculture, the Xiongnu practised metallurgy in the region, as testified by the presence of pottery kilns and iron smelting sites along the upper segment of the river, near forested areas (Sasada & Chunag 2014).

  • 25 Miller et al. 2019, pp. 267-286; see also the detailed study of H. Perlèè (1957) who discovered the (...)

25Some walled sites along the Kerülen River, just like the Kerülen River Map, were oriented following the orientation of the Kerülen River. On the banks of the Kerülen took place religious and social activities, as illustrated by the walled sites that served as places of gathering in the vicinity of the river25. For example, the town of Kerülen Bars (Mo. Kerülen Bars qota, or simply Bars qota) was located on the northern bank of the lower part of the Kerülen River. There existed five Xiongnu settlement sites along the Kerülen River, including four on its upper stream south of the Kentei Mountains and one on its eastern part at Kerülen Bars. The walled site of Kerülen Bars, constructed first in the Xiongnu era, follows a NW-SE slope – the same orientation as the Kerülen River Map. The fortifications of this site were built on the highest elevation, which would have provided the best view of the river valley (ibid.). In the Qing era, the site of the ruins of Kerülen Bars was the location of the assembly of the Sečen qan ayimaγ. This suggests historical continuity in the interplay between the river, political formations along its banks, and architectural works.

  • 26 Based on textual and linguistic evidence, Pount suggests that the Kitan Liao built the northern seg (...)
  • 27 The wall predates Chinggis Khan, but was named as such by the Russian scholar and traveller Aleksei (...)

26North of the river, there are ruins of a 740-meter-long stretch of wall that is believed to be built by the Kitan according to the best specialists (Pount 2019)26. This wall segment, which does not appear on the map, runs parallel to the Kerülen and reaches the Orqon River basin to the west. It constitutes the northern half of the nicknamed “Chinggis Khan Wall”27. Along this wall runs a stretch of Kitan walled towns, which, like the wall, presumably aimed at fortifying the northern frontier. The Chinggis Khan Wall also includes a southern segment that is roughly parallel to the northern one and runs a much longer distance between the Yellow River and the Kingγan Mountain, along the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. These Kitan sites along the Kerülen River revealed a variety of excavated objects and artefacts, including a five-story pagoda at Bars qota, an evidence of Buddhist architecture in which Buddhist sculptures were also found (Steinhardt 2016).

27In the Mongol Empire era, the Kerülen River also constituted an important landmark, as illustrated in the early Mongol archaeological sites along the river. For example, the Avarγa-yin balgas site, dated from the late 12th to the early 13th century, was found along a tributary of the Kerülen River in the modern-day Hentii Province. Findings suggest that it was a palace complex that served as an early administrative and elite site and later became a ritual and ceremonial place (Erdenebat et al. 2022). Another Mongol Empire site, the Hanzat site, was located along the Kerülen River’s northern bank (ibid., p. 512). Locating palaces along major rivers helped pastoral migrations, as it offered natural corridors of movements for the mobile royal court overland. According to archaeologists, these sites point to this Kentei area as the “political epicenter of medieval Mongol state building” (ibid., p. 513).

  • 28 Delger qan does appear on the 1780 map as a mountain below the Kentei Range of smaller size than th (...)

28Textual sources of the Mongol Empire also refer to the Kerülen River as a homeland and the site of numerous political events in the rise of Chinggis Khan. For example, the accounts of the missionary William of Rubruck point to the Onan-Kerülen region as the “original home” of the Mongols and the location of Chinggis Khan’s old palace (ordo) (Von Ruysbroeck [1900] 2017, p. 196). Rashid al-Din also mentions the Kerülen River in his monumental work on the history of the Mongols as a river originating in the centre of the southern side of the Burqan qaldun Mountain. But the most numerous mentions of the river are in the Secret History of the Mongols, the oldest and most important source on the early stage of the Mongol Empire. According to the colophon, the work itself was completed in the vicinity of the Kerülen River, at a place called Dolo’an boldaq of Köke’e aral, southwest of modern day Delgerhaan District (Rachewiltz 2004, p. xxix)28. Most importantly, it served as the backdrop for important events in the trajectory of the life of Temüjin (Temüǰin, personal name of Chinggis Khan).

  • 29 Kelüren corresponds to the spelling of the Kerülen River in Middle Mongolian. The inversion of the (...)

29Many significant episodes in the life of Temüjin took place in areas neighbouring the Kerülen River. While Temüjin’s childhood mostly took place along the Onan River, when the time came to meet his future wife, Temüjin left his home and went downstream “along the Kelüren River to look for Lady Börte” (Rachewiltz 2004, p. 29)29. Soon after, when two of Temüjin’s most loyal followers joined him, these reunions took place near the Kerülen River. Bo’orcu, a childhood friend, joined Temüjin; after this reunion where “they became firm companions”, they set up camp “at the source of the Kelüren river” (ibid., p. 29); he would later become a trusted commander of the right wing of Chinggis’ army. A similar sequence of events took place when J̌elme joined Temüjin. Both episodes of Temüjin reuniting with his most loyal friends, friends who later took on important military roles, took place near the source of the Kerülen River.

30The river continues to appear as Temüjin built alliances, such as while To’oril Qan agreed to help Temüjin rescue his abducted wife, and later on, when Chinggis Khan and Ong Khan joined forces to attack Jamuqa, they “set out downstream along the Kerülen River” (ibid., p. 63). Later, as Ong Khan was returning from a campaign exhausted and hungry, Chinggis Khan went to meet him in person “from the source of the Kelüren river” (ibid., p. 74). Chinggis Khan even set his palaces (ordo) by the hilly watered plains by the Kerülen River where, after his death, the assembly that elected his son Ögedei was held. The Kerülen River thus continues to be the backdrop of significant encounters and alliances from the early rise of Temüjin to the election of his successor.

A political map

31Moving to the Qing era, the Kerülen River continued to shape political formations. As shown on the 1780 Kerülen River Map, the river dictated the spatiality of the banners within the Sečen qan ayimaγ. The banners listed on the map were either on the north or the south shore of the river; none of the ǰasaγ’s territory straddled both sides. The Kerülen River thus separated the ayimaγ into two parts, on this particular map. Officials from the central Qing state had long understood the geopolitical importance of the river in eastern Qalq-a Mongolia. In 1805, when officials from the Board of War requested the making of local maps of Qalq-a Mongolia, they specifically instructed mapmakers to indicate the position of banners in relation to the riverbanks:

再庫倫大臣駐劄之所係在, 何部落境內,是否在格魯倫河之南, 抑在河北 […] 應會指明, 以便就圖標本,

Then, regarding all that is within the jurisdiction of the Imperial Resident in Kulun [Küriy-e, i.e. Urga], the information such as which groups (buluo 部落) are within its borders, whether they are south or north of the Kerülen River (Gelulun he 格魯倫河) […] should be clearly indicated, in order to make the map specimens. (National Archives of Mongolia M-1-1-3413-1 [1805])

32The river constituted the main geographical marker that situated the administrative units in the eastern Qalq-a territory. The vast majority of the mapping instructions sent to the Sečen qan ayimaγ specifically took the Kerülen as a point of reference  –  and not other rivers such as the Tula or the Onan. The Kerülen River was thus the main geographical feature of the territory of eastern Qalq-a that fell within the jurisdiction of the imperial resident in Küriy-e.

33The Kerülen River Map included important political and military information. For instance, the map showed the approximate location of each banner, including the number of able-bodied men (Mo. er-e) living in each who could serve as soldiers. The names of twenty-one ǰasaγs with their rank were indicated, and the number of sumus. For example, the ǰasaγ Sonom (E), north of the Kerülen River on the centre of the map, has one sumu and ten men (Sonomdagva 1998; Rinchen 1979, p. 18).

34While the text on the 1780 Kerülen River Map hints at the existence of banner borders (ǰiq-a), the territorial form and boundaries of these borders were not illustrated. The author of the map positioned the name of each ǰasaγ so that the reader could quickly grasp who was the neighbour of which banner, as well as where they were each situated in relation to geographical features such as lakes, rivers and mountains. In this regard, the map is like a chessboard where the approximate position of all players and their respective military effectiveness is recorded. In other words, the territory of the ayimaγ and the banners was localised without being bound. On the northern side of the map, there are 17 frontier posts (qaraγul) that marked the frontier with Russia. On the southern side where the imperial herds were located, there are no visible geographical or political markers. As shown in table 1, however, the information was not entirely complete, nor was it consistently recorded for each location. For some banners, only the number of sumus was listed. For example, the ǰasaγ Гončuγǰab (see fig. 4 and letter L in the table below the figure) was said to have one sumu and the number of men did not appear. The military information is a distinctive feature of 18th century maps and largely disappeared from maps of the 19th century.

35This map illustrates how the eastern Qalq-a territory was represented a year before an attempt to formally establish ayimaγ boundaries. It reveals how the steppe looked like in the eyes of a Qing Mongol official in the post-Jungar war context, and how territorial representation changed over time. The Jungar wars began in the 1690s and continued intermittently until 1759. The Qing state had put pressure on the Khalkha to support the military campaigns while also consolidating their power over the Khalkha, which led to the Chinggünjab rebellion (1756-1757) (Perdue 2005, p. 276; Kaplonski 1993, p. 237). While the decades following the end of the Jungar wars were marked by transition, the Qing’s military activities and its military culture were continuing, with ten more wars unfolding on various frontiers until the end of the Qianlong reign in 1799 (Waley-Cohen 2006, p. 23).

  • 30 This title corresponded to the position of military governor in Uliyasutai (Ch. jiangjun; Mo. jiyan (...)
  • 31 The following edict dated from 1781 also speaks to efforts to define boundaries between Qalq-a and (...)

36In terms of the consolidation of the Qing state power over Khalkha Mongolia and what it meant in terms of administrative geography, the banners were localised and situated in relation to topographic elements, but they were not represented as bounded communities. The appointment of Batu as Left-Pacifier of the Frontier General (Ch. dingbian zuofu jiangjun 定邊左副將軍) in 1780 was an important moment in the making of territorial boundaries in Qalq-a Mongolia30. The Qianlong emperor assigned Batu the task of setting clear boundaries between the four ayimaγs and producing maps of these regions, which marked the beginning of the process to define the ayimaγs’ respective territories (Oka 1988, p. 23; Chomongguriru 2015, p. 29; Legrand 1976, p. 55)31. This Kerülen River Map was produced a year before Mingšan and Batu were appointed to set the boundaries, and unsurprisingly, it did not include any boundary line or marker. The 1780 Kerülen River Map might have been used by officials as a rough approximation of the banners of the Sečen qan ayimaγ, before any systematic efforts were carried out to define the borders of the ayimaγ. Later maps from the mid-19th century, in contrast to this, began to emphasise boundaries and represent territorial units as administratively bounded and geographically contained.

  • 32 See also the Documentation of Mongolian Monasteries database for a map of Qing-era monasteries (htt (...)
  • 33 They were also excluded from many local Qing Mongol maps (Altanzaya 2011, pp. 164-176).

37Interestingly, this map includes no temple or monastery. This is a notable omission, especially considering that by the year 1776, there were more than 76 000 disciples of the Great Šabi (the ecclesiastical estate of the Jibzundamba qutuγtu) throughout Qalq-a Mongolia, including a significant portion of those residing in Sečen qan (Ninzhbadgar 2014)32. Recent archaeological work has uncovered the exact location of a monastery that used to exist at the site of J̌egün küriy‑e (Cyr. Mo. Züün hüree, “Eastern monastery”), on the Upper Kerülen Valley, on the west bank of the river. Home to 1 200 monks, this monastery was one of the largest religious and trade centres of the region and was the place of residence of the Second Jibzundamba qutuγtu (1635-1757) (Myagmar et al. 2018). Given its size and importance, its absence from the map suggests that ecclesiastical estates were deliberately excluded from this specimen of local cartography33.

38Looking at banner maps also allows us to see an additional layer of geographical knowledge that existed in tension with the 1780 Kerülen River Map. While on the Kerülen River Map, no banner straddled the Kerülen River, on several banner maps, the river crossed through the banner land. And on these maps, too, the river also features as a central landmark. For example, on the 1845 map of the Sečen qan Banner, the Kerülen River was also the horizontal central axis of the map, dividing it into two halves of roughly the same shape and size. The land of the banner thus occupied space on both sides of the river (Gerelbadrah & Mönhbaatar 2020, p. 7). However, on the 1780 Kerülen River Map, the Sečen qan Banner appears only on the north shore of the river; there are no indications that it continued on the south shore. This gives the impression that the territory of the banner was bordered by the river, while in reality, it might not have been. That the banner only appeared on one side of the river might be explained by the instructions from the Board of War (cited above) that required mapmakers to situate banners on either side of the river, instructions that likely forced the mapmakers to simplify the geographical composition of the banners in relation to the Kerülen. The corresponding banner map of the Sečen qan banner was centred on the river, like the many examples of banner maps throughout the Qing period that cover both riverbanks. The Kerülen River Map thus provides a simplified level of geographical information, one that gave the impression that the Kerülen River divided the territory of the banners, while in fact some banners straddled both sides of the river.

39To add an additional layer to our analysis, I shall now examine one cartographic representation of one of the banners illustrated on this Kerülen River Map. There are very few banner maps from the 18th century that have survived, but among these, one dating from 1791 corresponds to the J̌onon vang Banner of Sečen qan (fig. 12). This banner is situated south of the Onan River and borders the Qaraγul River on the north (see fig. 13). This banner map is held at the National Archives of Mongolia and was temporarily on display at an exhibition that took place in August 2017. The author of the map identified this banner by the name of its ǰasaγ Γombuǰab who ruled over the J̌onon vang Banner from 1771 to 180834. The mapping style of this map is similar to that of the 1780 Kerülen River Map whereby the author of the map rendered the topography using curvy brushstrokes for mountains and angular strokes for rocks. The annotations indicated neighbouring territorial units, and two frontier posts were indicated on the top of the map. Rivers figured prominently, and landmarks constituted the boundaries of the banner.

Figure 12. J̌onon vang Banner, 1791

Figure 12. J̌onon vang Banner, 1791
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 648k)

© courtesy of the National Archives of Mongolia, map exhibition, August 2017. Photo by Anne-Sophie Pratte

Figure 13. Area corresponding to the J̌onon Banner on the 1780 Sečen qan map

Figure 13. Area corresponding to the J̌onon Banner on the 1780 Sečen qan map
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 211k)

© courtesy of the National Library of Mongolia

40Both maps differ in their illustration of the topography and in the naming practices that they use, as we can see when we juxtapose images from the maps (see fig. 14). The 1791 J̌onon Banner map contains detailed illustrations of the relief, depiction of trees, strokes showing the current of the water, and complex angular shapes illustrating rock formations. However, it contains much fewer place names than the 1780 Kerülen River Map. Some of the hills on the J̌onon Banner map bear no name, in stark contrast with the 1780 Kerülen River Map which names most topographical features. The 1780 Kerülen River Map emphasises the junction of the Onan, the Balǰi, and the Qaraγul Rivers, making it one of the central features of this area. In contrast, the author of the J̌onon Banner map highlighted the hills, even covering up sections of the rivers that flow behind the hills. The perspective is that of a viewer facing the hills and walking through them; an even more pronounced form of the duck’s eye view. Circular brushstrokes also render the flow of rivers, and dense black circles evoke turbulent waters.

Figure 14. Topographical features that feature on both the 1780 ayimaγ map (row of images above) and 1791 J̌onon Banner map (row of images below)

Figure 14. Topographical features that feature on both the 1780 ayimaγ map (row of images above) and 1791 J̌onon Banner map (row of images below)
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 155k)

© Anne-Sophie Pratte

41The course of the rivers in the J̌onon vang Banner also influenced the form and direction of written toponyms. For example, the three streams in the centre of the map identified as East Marsh (Mo. J̌egün sibar), Middle Marsh (Mo. Dumda sibar), and West Marsh (Mo. Baraγun sibar) flow into the Qurq-a River (the modern day Hurh River in the Hentii Province), as shown in figure 15. The names of these rivers were not written top-down like other nearby toponyms, but were instead written from the bottom up. They were also written at the same angle as the rivers and point to the Qurq-a River, the river that the rivers themselves flowed into. In other words, the toponyms mirror the direction of the river they identify. This is another example of the form of a river dictating the aesthetics of a map whereby the written toponyms of some rivers reflect the course of the river itself. This shows how textual inscriptions were used to add a layer of information about the local topography. Such mapping aesthetics use textual inscriptions and symbology to provide an additional piece of knowledge on the physical landscape, thus allowing the topographical elements to shape the features of the maps, such as the textual inscriptions, the orientation of the map, the brushstrokes, the toponyms, and the symmetry.

Figure 15. Section of the map of the J̌onon vang Banner with toponyms mirroring the flow of rivers, 1791

Figure 15. Section of the map of the J̌onon vang Banner with toponyms mirroring the flow of rivers, 1791
Agrandir Original (jpeg, 125k)

© courtesy of the National Archives of Mongolia, map exhibition, August 2017. Photo by Anne-Sophie Pratte

Conclusion

  • 35 On these dimensions characterising environmental history, see Hughes 2008.

42The study of the 1780 Kerülen River Map points to the key importance of the Kerülen River in the political geography of the eastern Qalq-a steppe. The map stems from a specific point in time during the Qing era and is geographically localised; but the centrality of the Kerülen River was not limited to the Qing, as its political and social importance is also clear in sources from the Xiongnu and the Mongol Empires. The fortification of a presumably Xiongnu town followed the orientation of the Kerülen River. And in the Mongol Empire the Kerülen River served as the backdrop for major events in Chinggis Khan’s ascent. These pre-Qing sources illustrate how the Kerülen River has continued to act as a central landmark in steppe geographies at different historical times and among different ethnic groups who lived on this territory. A river-centred approach thus stretches usual temporal periods, distorts commonly used spatial units, and extends beyond ethnic units35.

43The Kerülen River was not the only focus of the map, however. It also presented local knowledge about the topography, fauna, and flora, including information on where particular medicinal plants could be found. The variegated depiction of mountains also conveyed information about the relief and place names were used as signifiers for the characteristics of natural elements. This map is thus the product of a form of interaction between its authors and the natural world, an interaction characterised by intimate knowledge and the impulse to closely align the map with the topographical features it contained. The Kerülen River not only appeared on the map – it also dictated its aesthetics. The orientation of the map, the perspectives used to depict the land, and the orientation of the text are all linked to the river, which creates a high degree of coherence and interconnectedness between the design of the map and the natural elements it represented.

44The examination on this Kerülen River Map thus adds to existing questions on the alignment of environmental history and the history of cartography. It interrogates the degree to which maps of the early modern era offered distinct layers of knowledge on the natural world and raises questions on the level of continuities or discontinuity of these layers into modern cartography. In more specific terms, this paper brings up new questions on the craft of maps produced in pastoral regions, thus opening avenues of comparison between pastoral and agrarian mapmaking, which would require studying closely a larger corpus of regional manuscript maps to expand the field beyond its focus on large atlases and printed maps.

45Today, the Kerülen River floodplain is home to nature reserves that aim to preserve and restore biodiversity to the area. The Har Yamaat Nature Reserve, for example, borders the southern bank of the Kerülen River and marks the intersection of three ecoregions, each of which has distinct ecosystems; it covers the territory where steppe and forest meet. It is a site where knowledge is produced on a variety of topics including but not limited to information about fish species, biodiversity, and how water resources are changing in response to climate change (Bayartogtokh et al. 2021; Maasri et al. 2021). These efforts to document, comprehend, and represent the natural and societal components of this region are not new. The 1780 Kerülen River Map, in its attempt to document the unique natural environment of the Kerülen River where steppe and forest meet, could be seen as a precursor of many scientific works that documented the hydrology, fauna, flora, and geology of the Kerülen River Basin.

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Bibliographie

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Notes

1 For example, on the eastern side, there is the Buyir Lake, identified as “Buyir dalai”, which is situated in modern day Dornod Province, on the border of the Republic of Mongolia and the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, in China. Next to this lake are the eight “arrows” (sumu, administrative unit in a banner) of Barγu (Barγu Naiman sumu). Also, the lower-right corner of the map indicates “these places share a border with the Solon Dagur” (ene ǰerge γaǰar solon daγur luγ-a ǰiq-a neyileǰüküi). On the Western side, the map indicates that it connects with the Urǰin Banner of the Tüsiyetü qan ayimaγ (mön Tüsiyetü qan ayimaγ-un ǰasaγ Urǰin-u qosiγu-luγ-a ǰiq-a neyileǰüküi), which was the ayimaγ adjacent to Sečen qan on the West.

2 Note on transcription: I used the Mostaert-Vladimisrtov system to transcribe Classical Mongolian.

3 Banners and ayimaγs were the main territorial and administrative units of Qing Mongolia. The Qing Qalq-a territory mainly consisted of the four ayimaγs of Sečen qan, Tüsiyetü qan, Sayin noyan qan, and J̌asaγtu qan, each of which comprised around twenty banners. For an overview of Qing administration in Mongolia, see Munkh-Erdene 2021; Di Cosmo 1998; Legrand 1976; Elverskog 2006; Atwood 2012; Vladimirtsov 1948; Farquhar 1960.

4 This paper borrows insights from Ruth Mostern’s work that uses archaeological findings, historical records, and GIS techniques to place the Yellow River at the centre of the historical narratives of imperial Chinese history (Mostern 2021).

5 The text is most likely dated from 1252. For a discussion on the dating of the Secret History of the Mongols, see Atwood 2007, pp. 1-48. See also the new translation that includes a comprehensive introduction to this work in Atwood 2023.

6 The Qalq-a Mongols are a sub-ethnic group that constitutes the majority of today’s Republic of Mongolia. They became part of the Qing state in 1691.

7 Works on Mongol historical maps include Haltod 1966; Heissig 1978; Futaki & Kamimura 2005; Kamimura 2014, 2017; Chomongguriru 2015; Gerelbadrah 2019; Gerelbadrah & Mönhbaatar 2020; Inoue 2014. A recent study in this journal by Isabelle Charleux has examined the representation of cairns (obuγa) on Mongol maps (2021). Humphrey 2021 looks at the cosmological underpinnings of Mongol historical maps.

8 This recent volume describes itself as a first attempt to use historical maps as sources to study environmental knowledge in the Americas (Brosnan & Akerman 2021).

9 Evenden 2004 is an example of a transnational history of a river.

10 The Organic Machine is one of the early works constituting the “river turn” in environmental history that shaped this sub-field of riverine studies (White 1995). For an overview of how the study of rivers developed following White’s seminal work, see Evenden 2018.

11 Recent books that have put Asian rivers at the centre of history include Mostern 2021; Zhang 2016; Pietz 2015; Muscolino 2014.

12 The map was written entirely in Mongolian and had no seals except for those added by the National Library of Mongolia. Although there is no information on the map itself about who commissioned it and how it was made, it was cited in a later document, which said that it was commissioned by the official providing service to the auxiliary general of the ayimaγ (ǰisiy-a ǰangǰun). The full name of this position is ǰangǰun-u γadanaki ǰisiy-a. It is part of the administration of the ayimaγ, not to be confused with the ǰangǰun at Uliyasutai, the highest military position in Qing Mongolia. For a description of the position of ǰangǰun-u γadanaki ǰisiy-a, see Legrand 1976.

13 This map only includes a small portion of Dariγanγ-a, which totalled 23 000 square kilometers and stretched between Qalq-a and Inner Mongol ayimaγs. For more information on the Dariγanγ-a territory, see Bello 2017; Zhamsran 1999.

14 “One packet with a letter of instruction to dispatch to our office a few princes among those who know clearly about the old and new lands” (Qaγučin sin-e nutuγ-i todurqai medekü vang-ud-un ǰerge kedün kümün γarγaǰu, man-u γaǰar iregün kemekü ǰergeber tusiyaγsan bičig nigen büsetei, in Qariyatu ayimaγ-un nutuγ tuqai-yin čiqula kereg-ün bičig-üd-ün tobči debter (“Summary book of the letters on the important matter concerning the pastureland of this ayimaγ [Sečen qan]”) – M-31.1-2143, 1907).

15 J̌isiy-a ǰangǰun-ača, nutuγ-un dangsa ǰiruγ-i todurqai üiledüged, in Qariyatu ayimaγ-un nutuγ tuqai-yin čiqula kereg-ün bičig-üd-ün tobči debter (“Summary book of the letters on the important matter concerning the pastureland of this ayimaγ [Sečen qan”], M-31.1-2143, 1907, p. 4.

16 On this 1780 map, the river is written as Kerülün. In this paper, I use the more common spelling of Kerülen (Cyr. Mo. Herlen; Middle Mo. Kelüren).

17 This is, as might be expected, lower than that of rivers in China proper. For instance, the flood frequency of the Yangtze River from 1860 to 1985 ranged between 16,4 and 2,5 years (Kim et al. 2017; Yu et al. 2009).

18 The flora in Mongolia includes four species of Cotoneaster including one that is native to Mongolia (mongolica, two types of melanocarpa, and uniflora) (Holzer et al. 2013, pp. 265-272, Gendaram 2019, pp. 1-6).

19 See Ligaa for a description of the Cotoneaster melanocarpa and Mongolica’s usages in Mongolian medicine (Holzer et al. 2013; Ligaa 1996, p. 222).

20 The worm’s eye view implies that the viewer of the map is like a worm laying on the middle of the map and looking about on either side. This term is used by art historians of Japan (Jap. chūkanzu) to describe a view in which the map reader would be a worm viewing things from the ground on the centre of the map (Wigen 2010, p. 83).

21 This worm’s (or duck’s) eye perspective is characteristic of early maps that were not yet standardised – attempts to standardise local maps of Qing Mongol banners and ayimaγs took place in the second half of the 19th century (Pratte 2022).

22 As Ashworth reminds us, the convention of consistently orienting maps to the north did not become an international convention until the 19th century (Ashworth 2019).

23 The name “Source of the three rivers” appears in the Secret History of the Mongols as the ancestral land of the Mongols.

24 The first lines of the Secret History of the Mongols read as follows: “The origins of Cinggis Qa’ an. At the beginning there was a blue-grey wolf, born with his destiny ordained by Heaven Above. His wife was a fallow doe. They came crossing the Tenggis. After they had settled at the source of the Onan River on Mount Burqan Qaldun. Bataciqan was born to them” (Rachewiltz 1997, p. 1). The Secret History also praises the resources of the region: “the land of Burqan Qaldun was good, and it was suitable for game hunting”. It highlights the Onan River as the central one along which the Mongols dwell, the site of several episodes, such as the one where Yisügei Ba’atur sees Hö’elün and abducts her to make her his wife (ibid., p. 12), after which her complaint “stirred the waters of the Onan [Onon] river” (ibid., p. 12). Soon after, she gave birth to Chinggis Khan “by the Onan river” (ibid., p. 13). After becoming a widow, her clan abandoned her and her children “along the Onan river, running up and down, she gathered crab apples and bird cherries, days and night she fed their hungry gullets” (ibid., p. 19). The river is even called the “Mother Onan” after their family, which created an association between Hö’elün and the river, both of them nourishing mothers responsible for bringing up Temüjin, helping this impoverished outcast to become a leader. In a later episode, after escaping from abductors, Temüjin hid inside the river, reclining on his back. In addition to a source of nourishment, the Onan River is also a protective force, in contrast with forests on the riverbanks that were deemed too inadequate to provide a hiding place to Temüjin. The Burqan qaldun Mountain in the Hentii Range also provides shelter to Temüjin and hid him from the Merkit who had kidnapped his wife Börte (ibid., p. 32), which inspired Temüjin to make daily sacrifices to the mount. This paper relies on Rachewiltz’ translation, as at the time of conducting this research, the most updated translation by Christopher P. Atwood (2023) was not yet available (Rachewiltz 1997, pp. 239-256). Allsen also stresses the political and spiritual centrality of the Burqan qaldun region as the birthplace of the Mongols, a shrine for the Chinggisid family and a sanctuary for the Toluid branch (Allsen 1996, pp. 116-136).

25 Miller et al. 2019, pp. 267-286; see also the detailed study of H. Perlèè (1957) who discovered the site of the Kerülen Bars qota and published measurements and dimensions of elements contained in this site, as well as drawings and photographs.

26 Based on textual and linguistic evidence, Pount suggests that the Kitan Liao built the northern segment of the wall and the Jürchen Jin built the southern one (Pount 2019).

27 The wall predates Chinggis Khan, but was named as such by the Russian scholar and traveller Aleksei Pozdneev (1851-1920) who drew on the nickname used by locals. See Pount 2019.

28 Delger qan does appear on the 1780 map as a mountain below the Kentei Range of smaller size than the main peaks. However, the place names Dolo’an boldaq of Köke’e aral from the Secret History of the Mongols do not feature on this map (Rachewiltz 2004, p. xxix).

29 Kelüren corresponds to the spelling of the Kerülen River in Middle Mongolian. The inversion of the consonants “l” and “r” is common (Poppe 1956, pp. 33-41).

30 This title corresponded to the position of military governor in Uliyasutai (Ch. jiangjun; Mo. jiyanggiyün). It was created in 1733 (see Di Cosmo 1998, p. 297).

31 The following edict dated from 1781 also speaks to efforts to define boundaries between Qalq-a and Dörbed territories. “The edict to the Grand councilors says: Mingšan (1719-1784) reported on the matter of setting obuγ-as (cairns) on the border of Qalq-a and Dörbed; he would first go from Qobdo carrying the stamp to meet with Činggui (1735-1816) and Batu, to fairly handle the matter (end of the report). Because Činggui is still sick, he cannot go to Uliyasutai. Batu was already appointed to substitute for him, and when Mingšan reaches there, he can immediately meet with Batu and handle the settling [of boundary markers]. There cannot be the slightest partiality. Also transfer this edict to Batu” (諭軍機大臣曰明善奏稱喀爾喀杜爾伯特交界地方, 設立鄂博,現由科布多帶印前往會同慶桂巴圖, 秉公辦理等語, 所奏尚是前因慶桂患病不能前赴烏里雅蘇台，已著巴圖署理將軍印務，明善到彼可即會同巴圖。秉公設立。不得稍有偏向。並傳諭巴圖知之, source: Qing shilu, Ql 46.3 [04-15-1781]). Mingšan held the position of Imperial resident in Qobdo from 1776 to 1783. Previously, he briefly served as Imperial resident in Uliyasutai (1775-1776) and held the position of Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Bordered Red Hanjun Banner (1767-1775). He was in charge of setting boundary markers between Qalq-a and Dörbed along with Batu in 1781 (source: Ming-Qing Archives Names Authority File MQNAF, “Mingshan”).

32 See also the Documentation of Mongolian Monasteries database for a map of Qing-era monasteries (https://www.mongoliantemples.org/en/ accessed on 1st March 2024). This database includes the founding dates of many of the monasteries, confirming that by the year 1780, there existed many in eastern Qalq-a.

33 They were also excluded from many local Qing Mongol maps (Altanzaya 2011, pp. 164-176).

34 Source: Mongol Toli Dictionary, Online, https://mongoltoli.mn/history/h/615, accessed on 1st March 2024.

35 On these dimensions characterising environmental history, see Hughes 2008.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1a. The Kerülen River Map, Sečen qan ayimaγ, 1780. Paper on ink, 94 by 64 cm
Crédits © courtesy of the National Library of Mongolia
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 694k
Titre Figure 1b. Geographical area corresponding to the 1780 Kerülen River Map
Crédits © Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 607k
Titre Figure 2. The Kerülen River as a part of the Pacific Basin in Eastern Mongolia
Crédits © Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 641k
Titre Figure 3. Reversed perspectives north and south of the Kerülen River
Crédits © Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 16k
Titre Figure 4. Map of the Sečen qan ayimaγ, 1780
Crédits © National Library of Mongolia
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 513k
Titre Figure 5. Junction of the Kerülen River and the Kölün Lake
Crédits © courtesy of the National Library of Mongolia
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 387k
Titre Figure 6. Juxtaposition of the historical and the modern maps
Crédits © Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 879k
Titre Figure 7. The Amur Basin
Crédits © Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-8.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 830k
Titre Figure 8. Landcover of the Kerülen Basin
Crédits © Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 567k
Titre Figure 9. Irγayitu
Crédits © Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-10.png
Fichier image/png, 147k
Titre Figure 10. Source of the rivers in the Kentei Mountain Range
Crédits © Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-11.png
Fichier image/png, 660k
Titre Figure 11. The relief of the Kentei Mountain Range on the 1780 map
Crédits © Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-12.png
Fichier image/png, 393k
Titre Figure 12. J̌onon vang Banner, 1791
Crédits © courtesy of the National Archives of Mongolia, map exhibition, August 2017. Photo by Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-13.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 648k
Titre Figure 13. Area corresponding to the J̌onon Banner on the 1780 Sečen qan map
Crédits © courtesy of the National Library of Mongolia
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-14.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 211k
Titre Figure 14. Topographical features that feature on both the 1780 ayimaγ map (row of images above) and 1791 J̌onon Banner map (row of images below)
Crédits © Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-15.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 155k
Titre Figure 15. Section of the map of the J̌onon vang Banner with toponyms mirroring the flow of rivers, 1791
Crédits © courtesy of the National Archives of Mongolia, map exhibition, August 2017. Photo by Anne-Sophie Pratte
URL http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/docannexe/image/6478/img-16.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 125k
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Référence électronique

Anne-Sophie Pratte, « The river that made the map. The Kerülen Basin in Qing Mongolia », Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines [En ligne], 55 | 2024, mis en ligne le 19 août 2024, consulté le 11 octobre 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/6478 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/126lt

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Auteur

Anne-Sophie Pratte

Anne-Sophie Pratte is an assistant professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar. She completed her PhD in Inner Asian and Altaic Studies at Harvard University and her M.A. in East Asian Studies at McGill University. She published “Mapping pasturelands. The production of geographical knowledge in nineteenth-century Qing Mongolia” (Late Imperial China, 2022) and “Mapping the Steppe. The Politics of Cartography in Qing Mongolia, 1780-1911” (Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 2022). In partnership with the Maclean Collection, she directed the making of an interactive Manchu historical map for the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library (https://www.leventhalmap.org/articles/qing-dynasty-route/).
ap1897@georgetown.edu

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Le texte et les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés), sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

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