This thesis discusses how the Siberian Railway, including its last section the Chinese Eastern Railway which crosses Manchuria, influenced the Japanese image of Siberia and Manchuria, both of which were, for the first time, been grasped to be one geographical space as nothern frontiers in Morishige Kondo’s Henyobunkai-Zuko (Studies of Unchartered Frontiers, 1804).

　The influence of the Siberian Railway upon the Japanese image of Siberia and Manchuria appeared in three stages corresponding to the following three symbolic events during its construction (in each case with a delay between the event and its influence on the image held in Japan): firstly, the inauguration of the construction of Siberian Railway begun with the formal groundbreaking ceremony of the Woosley Line at Vladivostok in 1891; secondly, the commencement in 1897 of the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway which crossed Manchuria; and thirdly, the completion of the reconstruction of the Chinese Eastern Railway in the fall of 1901, two-thirds of which had been destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

　The first influence came from the existence of the Siberian Railway itself under construction. That is to say, the Siberian Railway aroused various fears and dreams in the Japanese people. One of them was the possibility of a sudden military threat from Russia. Another was the expectation that Japan would become the “crossroads” of world traffic, and then the center of the Eastern and Western civilizations.

　The second influence appeared in the form of a shift in the Japanese image of the nothern frontiers from Siberia to Manchuria. An important factor which helped cause this shift was Heiriku Ogoshi’s ManshuRyoko-ki (Travels in Manchuria, 1901). In this book Ogoshi, who journeyed throgh Manchuria in 1898 and 1899, described in detail the Russian advance to Manchuria, the representations of which were the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway and the establishment of the Russian city of Harbin.

　The third influence appeared in the form of numerous accounts of Siberia and Manchuria which began to be published in magazines and travel books following the reconstruction of the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1901. In these accounts the image of Manchuria as “Fertile Land” was deliberatedly strengthened. It was in this way, then, that image of a future suitable colony of Japan began to be stressed.