In 1839, James Wyld published a mission atlas showing the locations of Protestant missions around the world. This map of Asia shows a color-coded socio-political division of the world.
The map of Asia shows a distribution of areas based on predominant religious affinity. It is remarkable that Hinduism (‘religion of Brahma’) and Buddhism are mentioned separately: during this period they were often classified under ‘heathen religions’. Although the names of regions, countries or empires are depicted on the map, the color coding is focused on religious beliefs. On the map an eye is depicted in a cloud, surrounded by sun rays and accompanied by a Christian cross: the all-seeing eye of God, symbolizing divine providence.
James Wyld (1812-1887) was a geographer and mapmaker who was ‘Geographer to the Queen’. He was famous for Wyld’s Great Globe, a 20-meter-high globe exhibited in London's Leicester Square in the 1850s that people could climb into. In the intro to the atlas, he wrote that this map was one of the first mission maps: ‘Maps have not hitherto been much used to illustrate the labor of the Christian community’. The atlas is dedicated to ‘Missionaries of the Christian World […] not only spread the religion of truth, but scatter amongst the untaught nations the blessings of civilization’.
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