• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.165-183
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• 2010

For the study of the development of Asia map made by european map makers, one should consider Gog and Magog which existed in the maps for more than 700 years. Gog and Magog are described as an apocalyptic people in the Bible and medieval literature, and they are important elements in medieval mappaemundi and early modem world maps. This study classified representation types of Gog and Magog in old western maps. Maps were classed in to six categories according to the location and ethnic groups which they represent, and they were discussed in cartographic context. The maps until the fourteenth century place Gog and Magog, shut up by Alexander, near Caspian Sea. In the fifteenth century, Gog and Magog were described as Closed Jews in maps. From the sixteenth century they appear in the far northeastern part of Asia and they are named as Amagog or Ung and Mongul. In the mid-seventeenth century, they are located in Eastern Siberia by French cartographers. But with the expansion of geographic knowledge, Gog and Magog disappeared completely in the eighteenth century. In general, God and Magog were represented on the basis of traditional lore rather than on the Bible, and they became one means of mapping others of European community.