Historical Primary Sources: Asia: Images and Maps

A series of photographic albums of Japan that Dutch doctor Anthonius Franciscus Bauduin took and collected with his younger brother, Albertus Johannes Bauduin, while living and working in Japan.

The more than 15,000 images in the Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection represent the extensive photographic files assembled by Frank G. Carpenter and his daughter Frances to illustrate his popular writings on travel and geography. The images reflect the Carpenters travels in Europe, the Near and Far East, Africa, Central and South America, and some areas of the Caribbean.

The images in this collection were assembled by Anne S. Goodrich (1895–2005) in 1931, when as a Christian missionary in Peking she became interested in local folk religious practices.

Contains 200 highlights from the collection of the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, and Stefan R. Landsberger. Free access.

Archive of digitized photographs, negatives, postcards, and slides of imperial Japan (1868-1945), its Asian empire (1895-1945) and occupied Japan (1947-52).

Images that document early 20th century China including the the Sino-Japanese Conflict (1937-1945), a visual history of Buddhist practices and temples in China, and other images of daily life in both rural and urban China.

More than 90 images plus 40 texts from early travelers to Formosa/Taiwan.

Stanford's extensive collection of Japanese military and imperial maps, covering Japan, China, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, the Philippines, and beyond.

More than 5,000 photographs of China taken between 1933-1946 that document lifestyles, trades, handicrafts, landscapes, religious practices, and architectural structures that in many cases have changed or have been destroyed.

More than 9000 photographs dating from the mid-19th to mid-20th century

The East Asian Library of UC Berkeley has a Japanese Historical Map Collection, which contains about 2,300 early maps of Japan and the World, including old maps of China.

Digitized maps from the University of Machester Library Japanese Collection and Maps Collection.

Largest collection of old photographs, approximately 7,000, taken all over Japan from the Bakumatsu through to the Meiji period.

Photo picture postcards of Korea published 1900–1940.

More than 100,000 digitized images from the Mainichi newspaper

A collection of photographs compiled by the National Diet Library.

A project that "weds images and scholarly commentary in innovative ways to illuminate social and cultural history"

The collection from the National Diet Library, Tokyo, Japan is taken from an exhibition of portrait photographs of approximately 600 statesmen, government officials, military officers, businessmen, scholars and artists who had an impact on building modern Japanese society.

Sidney D. Gamble (1890-1968), an avid amateur photographer and a sociologist, took more than 5,000 photos during his travels in China from 1908-1932. This digital collection is the first comprehensive public presentation of his work.

More than 3,000 historic photographs and 200 maps that focus on pre-1949 Shanghai

More than 20,000 images of tribal cultures in South Asia and the Himalayas

Over 9,000 images of an astounding diversity of people, places, and events from nearly every corner of the Indian Subcontinent.

This selection of 300 images portrays the people and landscape of a kingdom high in the Himalaya Mountains. Sikkim, now part of India, borders on Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan.

The collection consists of some 3000 photographs from the period between 1860 and 1940, most of which were taken by professional photographers capturing landscapes and street life, in addition to photographing houses and factories and taking portrait and group photos.

Posters from South East Asia countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, The Philippines, and many more.

Historic images at the British Library of the Indian subcontinent and its surrounding territories

Digitized historic photographs from UK's National Archives.

Images from late-19th and early-20th century trade cards and illustrated European newspapers of East Asia, South Asia, and Africa

Historical images from Protestant and Catholic missionary collections in Britain, Norway, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United States.

This project, undertaken from 1908 to 1931 to photograph human cultures around the world, resulted in 183,000 meters of film and 72,000 color photographs from 50 countries. The collection is now housed at the the Musée Albert-Kahn, and most of the images are available online.