Luo Hongxian

[1] After passing the Imperial Examinations with the rank of jinshi in 1529, Luo worked as a senior compiler at the Hanlin Academy.

[1] Hearing of raids by wokou pirates on China's south-eastern shores, he began collating cartographical information for the Ming government, spending three years in research.

During this period, he discovered the Yutu (Terrestrial Map), an atlas of China created by Zhu Siben during the Yuan dynasty some 300 years earlier around 1320,[3] which he adapted and expanded using Chinese measuring methods to create his Guang Yu Tu 廣與圖 (Enlarged territorial atlas), a work that covered the entire country.

[2] Martino Martini, an Italian Jesuit in China, drew his own Novus Atlas Sinensis (based on the Guang Yu Tu), which was published in Amsterdam by Joan Blaeu in 1655.

Martini's map remained the standard European view of China until 1737, when Jean Baptiste d'Anville published his Atlas de la Chine.