Religion
Related: About this forumA Detail-Packed Mid-19th-Century Map of World Religious Belief
David Rumsey Map Collection
June 9 2014 2:53 PM
By Rebecca Onion
This 1854 map of world religion appeared as part of an atlas published in Scotland by cartographer Alexander Keith Johnston. The map, a Moral and Statistical Chart Showing the Geographical Distribution of Man According to Religious Belief, presents religious geography from a Scotch Protestant perspective.
Historian of religion Lincoln Mullen, whose Twitter feed alerted me to this maps existence, says that religious publications of the time often included figures tallying the relative prevalence of world religions, as a way of encouraging readers to fund and support mission efforts. On this map, the interior of South America, most of Africa, and most of North America are coded green for pagana signal to Protestants reading the map that these were fertile fields for potential missions.
Mullen points out that the map is an intriguing combination of optimism and realism when it comes to assessing the strength of Protestantism. He elaborated over email: Mission stations in China, for example, are colored as Protestant, but most of Canada is regarded as heathen. Places like Manchester, England, show a significant Catholic populationa realistic reporting of the actual situation.
One the most interesting things about this map is the detail of its insets, some of which Ive blown up and included below. Johnston packs his map with close-ups showing locations of British mission stations in South Africa, India, and Canada.
David Rumsey Map Collection
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/06/09/religion_map_mid_19th_century_scottish_map_of_world_religion.html
David Rumsey Map Collection
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~24721~940060:Religious-belief-;JSESSIONID=4e2e2046-cc7b-45d8-8ff2-9d9a77f69eb8?qvq=q%3Areligion%3Bsort%3APub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No%3Blc%3ARUMSEY~8~1&sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&mi=47&trs=70#
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)"Scotch Protestant"?
Really? I had no idea they managed to bottle that stuff. I wonder if it's more of a Highland or an Islay . . .?
rug
(82,333 posts)My dad loved to tell a story of his first experience in Scotland, in 1952. He was on some sort of training course at RAF Lakenheath, and over one weekend decided to take the train up to Scotland. He arrived in Edinburgh, checked into a small B&B and did a bit of sightseeing before stopping at a pub.
He sat down at the bar and ordered a "whiskey, on the rocks".
Silence descended. Heads turned. Brows lowered. My dad was aware that something had gone quite wrong . . .
The publican picked out a bottle and poured a perfect dram - neat - and placed it before him. He then poured a tiny bit of water into another glass and placed that next to the dram.
"Pretend," he said, "that you are in the frozen north and that (pointing to the water) is ice - it's all you'll get here."
My dad learned to enjoy his whisky neat.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)Thanks for posting this, Rug.
littlemissmartypants
(22,548 posts)Feeding my cartographic addiction. Love, Peace and Shelter. Lmsp