Can you send me a map of China?

Long scale maps of oceans, islands, and land. Vertical map of China.

▲The Map Society presents a vertical version of China's map, with the islands of the South China Sea appearing on the same scale as the mainland for the first time.

Is China's map wider from east to west or longer from north to south? People who are used to seeing horizontal maps would easily choose wider east-west, but the correct answer is actually longer north-south.

Recently, the National Map Publishing House released a new version of the 2013 "Chinese People's **** and the State of the whole map", which shows the complete map of China in vertical format, and for the first time, the South China Sea islands and the mainland are shown in the map at the same scale, which provides a more realistic and intuitive panoramic view of China's land and sea boundaries. Corrected the horizontal board map of the land and sea small, heavy land light sea drawbacks. The newspaper invited Professor Lu Rude of the Navy's Dalian Naval Academy to explain the changes and significance of the vertical version of the map.

Horizontal maps have the disadvantage of "emphasizing land over sea"

Currently, the horizontal version of the map of China hanging across the country originated from the Qing government's "demarcation and division of borders" established by the map of China, and will extend China's borders all the way to Zengmuqiansha, the establishment of the land and sea as a whole territory, which is the first time that a map of China was published. This was a major step forward in the history of China's territory, as it extended China's territory all the way to Zengmuqiansha, establishing the whole territory of land and sea.

However, the practice of separating the land and sea territories and distinguishing between the main map and the annexed map by including the sea territory as an annexed map on a reduced scale in the horizontal version of the Chinese map is prone to three obvious misunderstandings: firstly, China's territory is long in the east and west, but short in the north and south; secondly, due to the adoption of a different scale, the sea territory has been doubled in size, making it appear to be large in terms of the land and small in terms of the sea; and thirdly, it will mislead people into thinking that "land is more important than sea". Thirdly, it will mislead the consciousness of "emphasizing the land over the sea", which is also one of the reasons for the weak national maritime awareness. Therefore, over the years, all sectors of society have constantly put forward the proposal to redraw the same scale, complete display of China's land and sea boundaries of the vertical map of China.

Last year, in a "three-entry" survey of schools, communities and the media conducted by the State Bureau of Surveying, Mapping and Geographic Information (SBGI) in cooperation with 12 ministries and commissions, including the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education, the majority of the respondents believed that "China's map is wider from east to west rather than longer from north to south! ". This attracted the attention of the relevant departments, and began to draw a new version of the vertical map of China.

Vertical map of the South China Sea islands

In the vertical version of the map of China, the previous horizontal version of the map of China as a thumbnail in the lower right corner of the "South China Sea islands" map, this time to be a comprehensive display of the South China Sea islands and the mainland is connected together. The map clearly shows the main islands and reefs in the South China Sea, as well as their geographical position in relation to neighboring islands, islands and reefs.

In the same open format, although the vertical map is smaller than the horizontal map scale, but the vertical version of the sea show more intuitive and complete.