This spectacular ca. 1783 map by Seutter features Asia, Australia, and speculative regions north of Japan. Maps of this time were generally based on explorers’ observations and maps from previous centuries. For instance, reports of modern-day Taiwan repeatedly appeared in sailors’ accounts as a site of shipwrecks. The legendary Lake Chiang Mai frequently appears in China as the source of several major rivers.The land of Iesso” or “Yezo,” which is now present-day Hokkaido, was an island allegedly lying north of Japan. The Russians attempted to discern whether Yezo was indeed an island or part of Asia with a number of expeditions in the seventeenth century. Under the reign of Peter the Great, the explorers were able to chart Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kurile Islands. In the 1780s, a French expedition sailed between Yezo and Korea, and then, through the Kuriles. “