India XI: Punjab, Lahore and Ladakh

The revised sheet

John Walker revised the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge’s Indian atlas, with J. & C. Walker engraving the maps and Edward Stanford issuing the 1856 volume. As with the Bombay sheet, 1856 is the date of the revised atlas represented here rather than proof that the cartographic content originated in that year.

The north-west made legible

The sheet brings Punjab, Lahore and Ladakh into a uniform regional format, with boundaries, routes, settlements and hachured relief. A recently transformed political frontier is presented without drama as ordinary reference geography.

Education after expansion

The Punjab had been annexed in 1849. The map need not have been created as a direct response to annexation to reveal the larger process: territorial change is rapidly absorbed into revised atlases, classifications and schoolroom knowledge.

The gaze

The frontier becomes a numbered plate. The force and uncertainty through which territory entered British rule recede behind a calm, standard cartographic surface intended for the educated public.