‘Kansu-Tibetan Border, showing stations of the Christian and Missionary Alliance’. In: 'Missionary Atlas', 1936

This map is from the Missionary Atlas published in 1936 by the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CAMA). The map shows China and the border area with Tibet, an independent state during this period.

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CAMA missions are underlined. Dotted underlined mission posts indicate that the posts are staffed only by Chinese. An example is Lupasi, where CAMA bought a lamasery in 1905, a monastery for lamas. The solid line indicates the border between China and Tibet, and the dotted line the ethnographic border. The accompanying text indicates that there is a local Chinese church that is also attended by Tibetans.

This atlas was made to show the work of CAMA. CAMA was founded in the United States in 1887 and was associated with the Pentecostal movement. The affiliated churches are now evangelical and strongly missionary. CAMA has more than six million members in 22,000 churches and operates in 88 countries. Its headquarters are in São Paulo.

The atlas was published in 1936 by Alfred Cookman Snead (1884-1961), a CAMA missionary to India in the first decade of the twentieth century. From 1921 to 1956 he was responsible for CAMA's foreign strategy. The atlas is arranged by country and provides information about, for example, population, climate, governance and history. This is followed by extensive information, accompanied by black-and-white photographs, about the geographical distribution and the activities of missionaries. The maps are simple and printed in black-and-white and show the missions of CAMA. This atlas was published in 1936, but refers to an earlier edition from 1924. In this edition Snead refers to the historical development that has taken place since then. ‘We are living in a world of rapid change’. Since 1924 ‘even the names of nations have been altered’. The map is identical to number 13, which shows the situation in 1950.