| 摘要: | 公元十七世紀和十八世紀，歐洲人繪製了不少有關新加坡的地圖，包括葡萄牙人、荷蘭人、法國人、和英國人。歐洲人在東南亞的探險和貿易活動，特別是葡萄牙人和荷蘭人，促進了有關新加坡地圖的測繪，這些地圖的內容說明了當時歐洲人對本區認知的狀況，許多因子影響了這些地圖的編繪，這些地圖大多是海圖，新加坡海峽及其鄰近海域，爲歐洲人航行必經之路，內容比較詳細，也相對地比較正確。當時歐洲人有關新加坡本島內部及柔佛海峽地區的地理知識，極其有限而每多錯誤，有關地圖的內容，多根據傳聞或臆造，不同的地圖，差異很大。
Map has existed as a form of communicative tool long before the arrival of the verbal and written language systems. This suggested greater immediacy about the knowledge encoded in maps for it speaks a universal language understood by man from dynamic cultural backgrounds.
The significance of the map should not be limited by what that appears on the map only. A map also entails a great deal of the cartographer's imagination. It is this zest in our creative mind that stimulates human imagination to reach the very meaning of life on earth (Harley, 1987, p.4). The social implications on the map should also be taken into account. No map is a pure record of geographical knowledge only. Many primitive societies and the pre-literate people, such as the Eskimo and the American Indian groups, have used rudimentary equipments to made maps to suit their needs. This fact has attested the fundamental importance of maps to man's existence and his orientation in the natural environment.
By looking at the cartographic progression through the years, it enhances our appreciation of man's ability to communicate his thoughts and activities through pictorial manifestation. The history of cartography traces the development of man's knowledge and ideas about the earth and the graphic forms in which he expressed them (Skelton, p.62).
The map represents a selective collection of spatial features experienced by man presented through the use of reduced, substituted space (Robinson, 1982, p.1). In other words, the map records man's experience in terms of place and space. This mental conceptualization of man's relationship with his surroundings is then translated onto the maps. The process represents a conceptual advancement and an attainment in abstract thinking of a very high order. This is a form of intelligence capable only of man.
In essence, the examination of mapping history serves to highlight and review various significant functions of this, age-old communication tool. It reminds us of the importance of maps as a comprehensive and necessary tool in the understanding of spatial phenomena. It also represents a most efficient vehicle for storing geographical knowledge. Most of all, it helps to provide a better understanding between distributions and relationships of spatial phenomena on earth.
The mapping history of Singapore has started as early as in the fourteenth century when Zheng Ho's sailing chart started the recording of the Singapore Strait (Xiang, p.49; Wheatley, pp. 88-103; Mills, 1937). Subsequently, more maps, especially hydrographic charts were produced for Singapore. Most of them recorded the island merely a dot as consequent of the use of small scale and limited geographical knowledge of the island in the early sixteenth century. During this period, it was the successful maritime explorations and sea trade of the Portuguese and the Dutch in the Southeast Asia region that prompted much mapping activities for Singapore.
Then, the maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had manifested improved knowledge of the straits of Singapore. Therefore, it is the aim of this paper to trace the history of the mapping of Singapore during these two centuries. |
