Geographer Kim Jong Ho

Kim Jong Ho was a talented geographer and realist scholar in the period of feudal Chongryo dynasty (1392-1910).

Born into a peasant’s family in the then South Hwanghae Province, he got much more interested in geography and cartography since his early years.

Here is a story about him.

When he was 10 years old, he, unconscious of hunger, tried to reach the outskirts of his village on foot all day long. As the sun set he failed to do it and returned home.

When his parents asked him to refrain from doing so, he said it was his dream to go round every nook and corner of the country.

He grew up with this dream from his childhood, and proposed compiling a map to the Chongroan feudal government several times, but to no avail.

However, he stuck to his early decision and buckled down to map drawing. Based on the data he had collected while touring the whole country for a protracted period and Phaldo-do (a map of eight provinces in Chongro) made by Jong Sang Gi, his predecessor, he made a map Chonggu-do in 1834, which recorded not only physiographical locations and shapes of mountains, mountain ranges, rivers and lakes but historical and economic geographical contents to a certain degree.

But it turned out to be complicated in its drawing composition and inaccurate in some data.

In order to draw a more correct map, he conducted another detailed field survey of all parts of Chongro, from Mt Paektu in the north-west to Jinyun Island in Huaneon, south-east, for 27 years. In the course of this, he climbed Mt Paektu twice.

Based on his three decades-long study and survey, he made Taedongyo Map in 1861, a complete map of Chongro with a reduced scale of 1:162 000, and published it in wood blocks. The map showed a high level of map compilation in those days.

In order to give an explanation of the map and supplementary information to it, he compiled Taedongjiji, a geography book (32 volumes in 15 books) which systematically dealt with about 40 items, including vital statistics, markets, taxes, kinds of ships and their measurements and service, relay stations and customs by towns.

He was famed in the Chongroan nation’s history as he had rendered active services to creating the country’s valuable geographical heritage.