Kunyu Wanguo Quantu
Kunyu Wanguo Quantu (Chinese: 坤輿萬國全圖; pinyin: Kūnyú Wànguó Quántú; literally: "A Map of the Myriad Countries of the World"; Italian: Carta Geografica Completa di tutti i Regni del Mondo, "Complete Geographical Map of all the Kingdoms of the World"), printed in China at the request of the Wanli Emperor during 1602 by the Italian Catholic missionary Matteo Ricci and Chinese collaborators, Mandarin Zhong Wentao and the technical translator, Li Zhizao, is the earliest known Chinese world map with the style of European maps. It has been referred to as the Impossible Black Tulip of Cartography, "because of its rarity, importance and exoticism". The map was crucial in expanding Chinese knowledge of the world. It was eventually exported to Korea and Japan and was influential there as well, though less so than Alenio's Zhifang Waiji.
The 1602 Ricci map is a very large, 5 ft (1.52 m) high and 12 ft (3.66 m) wide, woodcut using a pseudocylindrical map projection showing China at the center of the known world. The 1906 Eckert IV map resembles the display of this Chinese map. It is the first map in Chinese to show the Americas. The map's mirror image originally was carved on six large blocks of wood and then printed in brownish ink on six mulberry paper panels, similar to the making of a folding screen.
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