Editing Lilliput and Blefuscu (section)

==Location==
Swift gives the location of Lilliput and Blefuscu in Part I of ''Gulliver's Travels'', both in the text and with a map, though neither correspond to real-world geography, even as it was known in Swift's time. The text states that Gulliver's ship (the ''Antelope'') was bound for the [[East Indies]] when it was caught in "a violent storm to the northwest of [[Van Diemen's Land]]" (Tasmania). He gives the latitude as 30°2'S, though the longitude is unspecified.<ref>Jonathan Swift ''Gulliver's Travels'' (1726; reprinted 2003) Penguin Books (notes by Robert Demaria) p22 {{ISBN|978-0-14-143949-5}}</ref> Likewise, the map depicts Lilliput and Blefuscu south of "Hogs Island" ([[Simeulue]]), off northwest [[Sumatra]], and northwest of Van Diemen's Land, though the map is considerably foreshortened; Van Diemen's Land is shown south of the [[Sunda Strait]], some 10° (700 miles) east of Hogs Island, whereas Tasmania is actually some 40° (2,500 miles) east of that [[Meridian (geography)|meridian]].<ref>Swift p20</ref> Neither the text nor the map make reference to [[New Holland (Australia)|New Holland]] (Western Australia), which had been discovered in 1644,<ref>[https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20060913140000/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/60542/20060914-0000/www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/southland/Mapping-of_New_Holland.html Mapping New Holland] {{cbignore|bot=medic}}at nla.gov.au: retrieved 20 January 2019</ref> some 80 years before publication, and was well-documented in the maps of Swift's time.<ref>[https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20060913140000/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/60542/20060914-0000/www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/southland/maps-1642-1644_Hendrik_Hondius.html Hondius map 1642-44] {{cbignore|bot=medic}}at nla.gov.au: retrieved 20 January 2019</ref> While Australia's [[Cocos (Keeling) Islands]] are in roughly the right map location south-west of Sumatra, have two inhabited islands, and would have been known of in Swift's day, they are at entirely the wrong latitude.{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}

Because the area indicated by Swift is actually occupied by Australia, and on the basis of other textual evidence, some authors have concluded that Swift intended to place Lilliput in the Pacific Ocean, to the northeast, not northwest, of Van Diemen's Land.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bracher |first1=Frederick |year=1944 |title=The Maps in 'Gulliver's Travels' |journal=Huntington Library Quarterly |publisher=University of California Press |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=67–68 |doi=10.2307/3815865 |jstor=3815865 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Four Essays on Gulliver's Travels |chapter=The Geography and Chronology of ''Gulliver's Travels'' |last=Case |first=Arthur E. |year=1945 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton |pages=50–68}}</ref> However, none of the sea routes to the East Indies, Gulliver's stated destination, required ships to round Van Diemen's Land; the [[Spice trade|northern routes]], via India or Ceylon, avoided Australia altogether, while the southern ([[Brouwer Route|Brouwer]]) route, taking advantage of the [[Roaring Forties]], turned northeast in mid-ocean precisely to avoid New Holland, though the number of [[Shipwrecks of Western Australia|shipwrecks on that coast]] from the period attests to the dangers of overshooting the turning point. Swift was sceptical about the reliability of the [[travel literature]] of his day, and it is suggested that the unlikely geographic descriptions parody many of these works (described by Percy Adams as "travel lies").<ref>Percy Adams, cited in ''Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography'' (MJ Bruccoli, ed (1992) ''Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography: 1660-1789 Writers of the Restoration and eighteenth century'' {{ISBN|978 0 81 037980 0}})</ref>