世界現勢解説地圖. [Sekai Gensei Kaisetsu Chizu]. [Explanatory Maps of the Present State of the World].

大阪朝日新聞社. [Osaka Asahi Shinbunsha].. Showa 12 [1937].. 10 colour maps (not including insets or sketch maps in text) on 12 pages. Handsome world map features as the centre fold, colour pictorial paper wrappers. A little light soiling and horizontal crease wrappers. An attractive atlas. 38 x 26.7cm. A large format atlas with six pages of coloured maps showing the nations of the world, and five pages of Japanese text. The publication seems to have been produced to celebrate the 1937 world record flight from Tokyo to London by Iinuma Masaaki and Tsugayoshi Kenji in their plane 'Kamikaze', which was sponsored by the Asahi Newspaper. The front cover depicts the plane soaring over a map of the world, while the back cover also had a colour image of the 'Kamikaze' with an advertisement for the Oji Paper Company, which (we are told) donated a hundred million yen to support the flight. (The name 'Kamikaze" had, at that stage, not yet taken on the connotations which it acquired during the Pacific War).

The maps inside the volume show political boundaries, major cities and transport routes. The opening pages show the Japanese Empire, including Japan proper, Korea, Karufuto and Manchukuo, with small insets covering Taiwan, the Chishima Archipelago and Japan's South Sea mandate. The accompanying text focuses on Japan's newly acquired client state of Manchukuo, detailing its area, population, principle products etc, while the map includes graphs illustrating Japan's trade with the world and with Manchukuo. China receives an entry of its own, with a map of the Chinese Republic and information on the political situation, population, trade and infrastructure. The central pages of the volume are taken up with a double-spread map of the world, including depictions of the flags of a selection of the world's nations. Other sections of the work cover Asia, Europe, America, Africa and Oceania (grouped together). The discussion of Oceania includes a section on Hawaii, and some small and improbable depictions of Maori and Indigenous Australians. .