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Ino Tadataka was born in a village near the
Pacific Ocean in Chiba Prefecture, and was
adopted at the age of seventeen into the
Trio family in Sawara. This family hereditarity
served as the headman of Sawara Honjuku,
the area on the right bank of the Ono River,
and was engaged in rice trade and brewery
of sake. After working actively for the community
of Honjuku and his family's business for
thirty-two years, he, at the age of fortynine,
retired from these duties. The following year, he moved to Edo (now Tokyo) to start his studies on Western astronomy under Takahashi Yoshitoki, a specialist in the astronomy and calender department of the Tokugawa Shogunate. After five years of studying, in 1800, under the order from the Shogunate, he set out on a tour for surveying the whole country of Japan to make accurate maps, using precision instruments for his astronomical observations. This tour was continued till 1816, covering 34,913 kilometers. In 1821, three years after his death, his maps were completed by his pupits and friends. The accuracy of his maps called Tno-Zu (Ino's Map) surprised the English fleet that visited Japan in 1861 to survey the Japanese coasts. The fleet left Japan, without undertaking the survey,but instead carrying home the Ino-Zu was presented to them by the Shogunate. In the late Edo period, there were many Japanese,who tried to import Western science and technology into Japan for modernizing Japan. Ino Tadataka was a outstanding figure among them. Tadataka's spirit of hard work and searching for the scientific truth, and his accomplishments after retirement at the age of fifty are marveled at by the Japanese even today. |
| Ino Tadataka (1745-1818) The great geographical surveyor and pioneer in the modernization of Japan |
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| One version of the map of Japan made by INO Tadataka (Ino-zu) |
