Map of India exhibiting its political divisions

1895

Steel engraving on paper, with contemporary hand-colored outline

Print size: 11 x 8.75 in (28 x 22 cm)
Sheet size: 13 x 9.75 in (33 x 25 cm)

British India Quantified — James Wyld’s Map of India, with a Statistical Table of Area and Population

This finely engraved nineteenth-century map of India by James Wyld presents the subcontinent not only as a political geography but also as a quantified imperial possession. Executed in steel engraving and published in London from Wyld’s Charing Cross premises, the map delineates British presidencies, allied territories, and independent states with crisp outline colouring, extending from the Indus frontier across Hindustan to Bengal and southwards to Ceylon.

What distinguishes this sheet is the prominent engraved table of the area and population of Hindoostan, which enumerates British territories, allied states, and independent regions by square mileage and estimated population. The Bengal, Madras, and Bombay Presidencies are set alongside princely states and frontier regions, transforming the map into a statistical instrument of governance. Geography and demography are here made mutually reinforcing, reflecting a period when British authority increasingly relied upon numerical abstraction to justify and administer imperial control.

Technically refined and visually restrained, the map exemplifies mid-Victorian cartographic practice, combining legibility, precision, and bureaucratic clarity. The steel-engraved linework permits dense toponymy, while the measured hand-colour underscores administrative divisions without obscuring detail.

As an object, the map occupies a critical position between Enlightenment survey traditions and the later census-driven colonial state. It is a compelling document of how India was rendered legible to British administrators, investors, and the metropolitan public through the dual languages of map and table.

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