Old army maps find peacetime role

SENDAI (Kyodo) Environmental research and disaster-prevention are among peaceful goals Japanese researchers are striving for as they peruse thousands of topographic maps of the Asia-Pacific region produced secretly by the Imperial Japanese Army.

Surprising find: Geographer Ryohei Sekine, an assistant professor at Tohoku University, explains the terrain of the Himalayas on a topographic map secretly made by the former Imperial Japanese Army in Sendai on Thursday. KYODO PHOTO

Sendai-based Tohoku University has posted about 6,000 of the military maps, called "gaihozu" (maps of foreign countries), on its Gaihozu Digital Archive Web site (dbs.library.tohoku.ac.jp/gaihozu/).

The maps cover areas ranging from Alaska and parts of the United States to Australia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hawaii and Madagascar are also covered.

Geographer Ryohei Sekine, an assistant professor at Tohoku University, said the maps are accurate and contain information that can be used even today. "We'd like to revive the maps and share the information, and help save the global environment," he said.

Last year, Tohoku University publicized some gaihozu maps of the Irrawaddy River in what was Burma to support rescue activities after a major cyclone devastated Myanmar's key rice-growing area, claiming more than 130,000 lives.

"The locations of bridges, roads and hospitals on the maps were surprisingly accurate," a researcher who visited the disaster-hit area said.

The gaihozu of the Himalayas provide useful climate information by depicting glaciers.

"A comparison with a present-day map will clearly show the progress of global warming," Sekine said.

Since China and North Korea treat topographic maps as state secrets and ban their use by the public, maps covering the two countries are not included in the online collection to avoid stoking disputes.

The maps were produced by the geographical survey team of the Imperial army's General Staff Office between 1888, ahead of the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War and Japan's later war in Asia and World War II.

The army secretly conducted geographic surveys abroad and seized maps from enemy forces to build up its collection.

Immediately after Japan's surrender, however, more than 100,000 topographic maps that had been collected by researchers were destroyed by the army to prevent them from being seized by the Allied powers.