Original Japanese six-volume woodblock print book set, “sekai koku zu”, by Fukuzawa Yukichi.

Contents:
1. Hemisphere World Map (includes the Sandwich Islands or Hawaii);
2. Map of Asia, including Japan, Korea, China, Russia, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, etc.;
3. Map of the Pacific Ocean, including Australia, New Zealand, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), Indonesia, Malaysia, etc;
4. Map of North America, including the United States, Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Central America, Cuba, etc;
5. Map of Europe, including England, Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, etc;
6. Map of South America;
7. Map of Africa, including the newly opened Suez Canal.  

There are also many small woodblock prints of people and places around the world throughout the 6 volumes. This is an important early set of Japanese books about the world, compiled by Fukuzawa Yukichi, a leading political figure and educator in the early Meiji government who traveled to America with the first Japanese embassy in 1860. He is considered so important to Japan’s early modernization, that his portrait appears today on Japan’s highest denomination of currency, the 10,000 yen note.