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Description

Wall Map Showing The World's Religions and Christian Missions

This wall map is titled Planisphère des Croyances Religieuses et des Missions Chrétiennes, which translates to "World Map of Religious Beliefs and Christian Missions."

The map provides a statistical and geographical representation of global religious affiliations alongside the distribution of Christian missionary activities. Created by Valerien Groffier (who also produced the Christian Missionary Atlas and several similar works), the map offers a comprehensive visual guide to the religious composition of different regions around the world, highlighting the spread of various faiths, particularly Christian denominations. 

The map includes a detailed diagram titled "Diagramme des Religions," which uses color-coded squares to represent the population sizes of different religious groups. Each square accounts for ten million adherents, with distinct colors indicating various faiths:

  • Catholicism (white)
  • Protestantism (green)
  • Schismatic groups (Eastern Orthodox) (red)
  • Judaism (blue)
  • Islam (brown)
  • Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Brahmanism, Paganism, and Fetishism (yellow and various shades)

This visual breakdown allows viewers to grasp the relative sizes of major religious groups at a glance. The diagram also conveys the dominance of Christianity across certain continents, while other belief systems, like Islam and Buddhism, are represented in distinct regions. 

The map's content is further divided into two sections, one labeled Lettres Rouges (red letters) for Catholic missionary statistics and the other Lettres Bleues (blue letters) for Protestant missionary organizations. Each section lists major missionary societies, their founding dates, locations of activity, and the number of missions or missionaries dispatched worldwide.  

Another part of the map elaborates on the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, detailing the number of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and other clergy involved in the missionary enterprise. This includes a breakdown by nationality (e.g., French, Belgian, Spanish, Italian) and their respective roles within the Church's global mission. 

The map centers on the geographical distribution of religious groups and Christian missions worldwide, with an emphasis on Africa, Asia, and the Americas—regions that were major focuses of missionary efforts during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Countries and regions where Catholic and Protestant missions are particularly active are highlighted, and lines indicating telegraph or postal routes suggest how missionary activities were connected to global communication networks. 

Condition Description
Backed with linen. Minor soiling.