The Lixia River Plain, consisting of a great number of small lakes and swamps, spread widely in the north of Jiangsu Province in history. After 1570, the flood of Huaihe River entering Lixia River Plain continued to increase, which caused great changes in the distribution of lakes and drainage pattern in the region. After 1596, the flood from the Jinghe River and the Ziyinggou River entered into the Guangyang Lake, and then flowed through the Sheyang Lake into the sea. The waters in the southeast of Gaoyou all converge in the Luyang Lake. After 1681, due to the southward shift of the Guihai Dams, floods converged in the middle of the Lixia River Plain and overflowed from the south to the north. As a result, the Dazong Lake and other lakes were connected and merged as a whole. Due to the decrease of flood, the Guangyang Lake was divided into several scattered lakes. Whether the Guihai Dams were opened or not, it would directly affect the hydrological environment of the Lixia River Plain, and thus form two completely different lake distribution and drainage patterns in the flood period and normal period.

Located along the lower reaches of Daqing River and Ziya River, the Wen’anwa(文安洼) in Wen’an and Dacheng County of Hebei Province is a low-lying depression and shaped like “the bottom of a cauldron” in colloquial language. It is difficult to drain its water reserve, which often caused severe flood disasters in the past. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Wen’an County took many measures, such as building dikes, diverting river courses, and planting rice in shallow water, to control the flood but to no avail. It was not only the environmental factors, such as the low-lying terrain and the silt of the lower reaches of Daqing River and Ziya River, that made it hard to control the flood in the Wen’anwa Depression, but also social factors, such as the conflicting interests of water control between Wen’an County and the surrounding prefectural and counties, and the lack of ability and tactfulness of water management by Wen’an County itself.

Boundary and jurisdiction are important geographical elements of the administrative division. In Qing Dynasty, a total of 203 county-level administrative divisions were split, most of which resulted in creation of new counties, while a few produced Zhili Ting (Para-county under the direct jurisdiction of the central government). As the number of county-level administrative divisions increased, the cultural and geographical elements such as the gathering point or the wicker edge had become important basis for deciding boundaries. The areas with more intensive adjustment of county boundaries were Fengtian, southern Jiangsu, southern Shaanxi, eastern Sichuan, and the junction between Fujian and Guangdong. More county-level administrative divisions had been added in these regions, reflecting their regional development process in the Qing Dynasty. As an administrative means of balancing local governance, dividing the border operated and evolved under the factors such as rectifying upheavals, grass-roots governance and responding to the border crisis. The spatial form of the county boundary was generally formed according to the principles of natural features including mountains and rivers, shaping a reasonable jurisdiction area, and adjusting the distance from the administrative center.

Foreign owned trading companies were an essential institution between China and western countries in modern times. Its spatial evolution and strategy represent imperialism’s destructive and reconstructive influences on Chinese cities. This paper takes Tianjin as a case study, and analyzes the important role that foreign companies played in urban development through a visual analysis of its spatial evolution process using HGIS. The result shows that Tianjin, as a trading center in northern China attracted a large number of foreign companies, which formed a unique spatial system. These foreign companies had a complex impact on the formation and transformation of the urban spatial structure of modern Tianjin, as they did on other treaty port cities.

In the mid-Qing Dynasty, the flood level of the Jingjiang River (a section of the Yangtze River) began to rise and was repeatedly recorded in the Sanxun Anlan Zouben of the Qing Palace Memorials and Archives of the Grand Council. During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi reigns, after the Ouchi and Songzi dikes collapsed and the main flow diverged to the Dongting Lake, the flood level eased temporarily and rose again rapidly in the Guangxu’s reign. The rising flood level affected the courses, and water environment of the rivers flowing southward into the Yangtze River. In the Juzhang River Basin, this involves the expansion, separation, and approaching northward of the Bailizhou Island in the Yangtze River, shifts of the estuary of the Juzhang River, the shift of the main Yangtze River course, the extension of the lower reaches of the Juzhang River caused by the adjoining of Lower Bailizhou with the east bank, as well as the silt caused by the counter-balanced effect of the river flow and mountain torrents. In the Ma’nao River Basin, the backwater effect of the rising flood level at the estuary turned the area into a swamp.

Both the records of historical documents in the early Ming Dynasty, and the Plaque of the “Timasa Pacification Commission” found in Assam Pradesh, India, indicate that the Gula Chiefdoms set up in the southwest frontier region in the early Ming Dynasty were actually located in the Brahmaputra Valley. Since the Han and Tang Dynasties, the Brahmaputra Valley had been an important channel connecting China and the South Asia. After the reunification of Yunnan, the Ming dynasty actively managed the southwestern frontier. With the continuous expansion of the influence of the Ming China, the Gula tribes established political contact with the Ming Dynasty and the latter then set up chiefdoms in this area. Although the relationship between the Ming dynasty and the Gula chiefdoms did not last long, the re-opening of the land Silk Road to South Asia greatly expanded the geographical cognition of the ancient Chinese.

In the past, it was believed that Xinzhou(信州) in the Liao and Jin dynasties was located in present-day Qinjiatun, in Gongzhuling City, while the ancient site in Wujiazi, 13 km to the west of Qinjiatun, was considered to be a sub-state of Xinzhou and received little attention. Based on the reading of historical satellite photos and field surveys, we have discovered the outer city wall around Wujiazi, thus increasing its perimeter to be comparable to that of Qinjiatun. This discovery is different from the old understanding. By re-evaluating the surface remains of the two cities and the excavated relics, it is clear the ancient city of Qinjiatun was a Jin dynasty site, while the ancient city of Wujiazi was a Liao dynasty site, abandoned in the early Jin dynasty. Based on the archaeological evidences and combined with the literature, we believe that the Liao Dynasty Xinzhou was ruled from Wujiazi ancient city, and during the Jin Dynasty Xinzhou was ruled in Qinjiatun ancient city. According to the Yuan Yitong Zhi, the time of the change seems to be the third year during the Huangtong period (1143).

In the late Qing Dynasty and the Period of Republic of China, the provincial government of Xinjiang actively promoted the reform of administrative divisions and created a large number of new county-level administrative districts, in order to meet the needs of frontier management. It’s worth an in-depth study on the characteristics of these new counties, and the similarities and differences between them and the counties in the hinterland. By restoring the process of Horgos County’s establishment and reconstructing its boundaries in 1914 using archives and maps, this study reveals the political considerations of the provincial government of Xinjiang including strengthening the military defense, diplomacy, management of foreign trade and domestic affairs, when establishing new counties along the border area between China and Russia. At the same time, this case also shows that in the process of delineating the boundaries of administration districts in the modern frontier areas, in addition to concerns over traditional principle of following mountains and rivers, domestic and foreign political relations such as disputes over national boundaries, economic distribution, and the local warlords’ own benefits also affect the delimitation.

Settlement pattern is an understudied topic in historical settlement geography. The settlement pattern of Jingsheng Village in Lingshi County in Shanxi Province had experienced three stages of change: the initial development of the gullies and lanes from the late Yuan Dynasty to the early Ming Dynasty, the boundary expansion and internal expansion from the late Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, the filling of the settlement pattern in the late Qing Dynasty and the “southward invasion” across the river. Factors such as geographical environment, clan power, war and banditry, national policies had all played an important role in the development and evolution of Jingsheng Village settlement pattern. The case study of Jingsheng Village shows that the formation and development of settlement pattern is a historical process of dynamic change, and the establishment history of settlement temples and landmark buildings has become an important index for investigation. Research on the pattern of rural settlements will be one of the trends of future rural historical geography studies in China.

According to the narrate on Xuanzang’s smuggling out of the Yumen Pass from Guazhou recorded in “The Biography of Master Sanzang of the Daci’en Temple”, combined with studies on Soviet military maps and field investigations to carry out “accurate restoration”, it is determined that the site of Xiaowan City is the only possibility of the site of the Yumen Pass in the Tang Dynasty. A deserted beacon was discovered at the southern end of the Jieshanzi Valley, making it even more certain that this road was the route from Guazhou City to the Yumen Pass in the Tang Dynasty.

In Ming Dynasty, the ranking system of the administrative division of prefectures and counties were initially accorded to the amount of taxes and levied grain, hence the different grades of officials. In the fourteenth year of Hongwu, taxation and location were also used in determining the social and natural quality of the divisions, namely Fan or Jian, as well as the assessment methods of officials. Yang Yunsheng proposed to divide the administrative hierarchy into three levels according to administrative workload, geographic location and transportation during the Jiajing years. Consequently, the Ministry of Personnel unified the administrative divisions into three levels in the first year of Longqing. According to the statistics recorded in the Da ming guan zhi, the places with important roads, heavy workload, dire taxation were mostly concentrated in the Southern Zhili, Northern Zhili, and Jiangxi provinces, among which the places along the canals were particularly typical. Officials were selected to fill in the positions of Fan or Jian in the late Ming dynasty, but the ranking system was not continued after the implementation of the method of drawing lots. The ranking system in the Ming Dynasty had a great influence on the Qing Dynasty, and the spatial distribution of the administrative divisions in the Ming and Qing Dynasties also had certain similarities.

Historical records after the late Ming Dynasty generally claim that Nanwang has been the “water ridge” occupying a commanding height alongside the Huitong Canal, which is a section of the Grand Canal, since the Yuan Dynasty, and the key determining the success of the Huitong Canal in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties lies in choosing Nanwang “water ridge” as the water diversion hub. This paper proposes that this view is incorrect. Nanwang was originally the last remnant of Liangshanpo with a low-lying terrain. It began to silt up after Song Li diverted Wenshui River water to Nanwang for transportation in the early Ming Dynasty. In the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, the pivotal position of Nanwang as the water diversion hub was determined. By then the mud and sand dug out and piled up on both sides of the river created a landform of heaped-up hill, hence the “water ridge” image in the eyes of people since the late Ming Dynasty. That is to say, the Nanwang “water ridge” was formed in the Mid Ming Dynasty as a result of natural sediment accumulation and artificial dredging. Based on this, this paper re-examines the reasons determining the success or failure of the Huitong Canal in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties and discusses the significance of the formation of the Nanwang “water ridge” on transforming the Huitong Canal from a river depending on the violent Yellow River for water supplies to the one that relies on the stable Wenshui River for water source in the middle of the Ming Dynasty as well as its far-reaching influence on the principle of Yellow River maintenance after the Mid Mind Dynasty.

The change of Dianshan Lake during the Song and Yuan dynasties are the result of the changes of hydrological environment in the east of the Taihu Lake. During the mid to late Northern Song Dynasty, Dianshan Lake was expanded due to crustal subsidence in the Dianmao (淀泖)region, the siltation of the Wusong River, and the accumulation of water in the pond, and the main flow of Dianshan Lake was discharged into the Wusong River along the northern ponds, forming a unique overflow hydraulic system between the Wusong River, the ponds along the river and Dianshan Lake. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the drainage pattern of Taihu Lake was southeast and northeast, influenced by the continuous siltation of the Wusong River, and the clear water and tidal water were permanently supported by each other in the northeastern waters of Dianshan Lake, resulting in the spread of siltation and the expansion of polder. The backwater of Dianshan Lake, which has been blocked from flowing northward, gradually develops towards the southeast. During the Yuan Dynasty, the main stem of the Wusong River continued to silt up, the amount of water coming into Dianshan Lake continued to increase. However, with the blockage of the outlet of Dianmao in the northeast pond and the construction of the southeast pond, the water was stagnant in the Mao area, including Dianshan Lake, causing a stagnant catchment area and a second expansion of Dianshan Lake.

The Huaiyuan Posthouse of Canton was located in Xianzibu, Sai-kwan from the Ming to the early Qing Dynasties, which was the place where the Kwangtung Shi-Po-Si(广东市舶司) received the tribute ships and foreign envoys onboard those ships. It also functioned as the site for China-foreign tributary trade. With establishment of the Hoppo during the Kangxi reign, the Thirteen Hongs (factories) were assigned with the task of undertaking foreign trade. After many efforts, foreign tradesmen were allowed to rent commercial houses and set up factories in the Thirteen-Factory Street to the south of the Huaiyuan Posthouse. The Hongs were was managed by merchants. The Huaiyuan Posthouse was abolished in the late Kangxi emperor. The Thirteen factories basically replaced the functions of the Huaiyuan Posthouse. The essence of this shift from the Huaiyuan Posthouse to the Thirteen Hongs is the declined of the tributary system in Qing Dynasty and the rise of the Canton trade through the Hongs.

At the turn of the Twentieth century, Western municipal concepts and theories were gradually introduced into China along with the examples set by treaty port cities. Some traditional cities formed in the dynastic time also began to carry out modern municipal constructions. In this study, we take Ningbo old city as a typical case and focus on three ways of road improvements in the 1920s and 1930s: the demolition of the city wall, the filling of rivers and the removal of residential buildings. Based on earlier studies, we use large-scale old maps and local gazettes to restore and analyze the river channels and road networks. It shows that for the traditional cities in China, due to the lack of motivation and capital, even if the urban administrative districts had been set up, it might not be able to promote the conditions. On the contrary, it caused many social problems especially during the expropriation of construction land.

A map of the English Settlement in Shanghai right after its port-opening collected by the British Royal Geographical Society did not mark its drawing time. One view holds the map was drawn in 1846-1847, another infers that in 1844-1847, but both are speculative. We reconsider its drawing time and try to evaluate the map based on the information on it. The results show the map should be drawn from October 1st to October 19th, 1846. It is the earliest map of English Settlement in Shanghai having found, and a very important source to study the developing process of English Settlement. Also, this map is of great value for the study of Land Deed.

Qing Dynasty officials organized several expeditions to explore the source of the Yellow River. In the late Qing Dynasty, Westerners also did a lot of explorations. The results of the source explorations reflected the understanding of the very question in the Qing Dynasty. Constrainted by surveying and mapping conditions, the water system of the source area of the Yellow River was not fully understood. Therefore, the conclusion drawn from current textual researches on the basis of the source of the Yellow River as explored in the Qing Dynasty might be problematic. Similarly, the historical maps compiled and drawn on the same basisare also worth examing. In this paper I argue that it is appropriate to take a fuzzy approach to the labeling of the river sources in Qing Dynasty.

During the Tang Dynasty, there are two Shaoyang yards within the Daming Palace city and both are located in the vicinity of the inner court where the emperors reside. The West Shaoyang Yard is not in line with the tradition of the location of the crown prince’s palace, which prioritize the East, but it can receive the attention from emperor, empress and eunuchs because of its better location. In the period of the Late Tang, the eunuchs find it easier to control the West Shaoyang Yard, hence the emperor and crown prince, because it is close to Neishibiesheng and the barracks of the imperial guards just outside the Jiuxian Gate. The East Shaoyang Yard not only includes the eastern part of the Menxiasheng, but also a quarter inside the Chongming Gate, and the later is the real abode for the crown prince. The Eastern location and the fact that most of the successions of the throne are not from father to son contribute to ascending status of the East Shaoyang Yard as an important ritual space for the crown prince before taking up the throne.

There used to be the tide watching custom, locally dubbed as the “August 18th tide birthday”, around the estuaries and tributaries of the Yangtze, Qiantang, Wusong, Loujiang and Huangpu River. The rise or fall of this custom was closely related to the unobstructed or blocked of those rivers. The tide watching custom originated in Qujiang in Guangling (now Yangzhou), and the most famous is the Qiantang tide. Tide watching had become an entertaining folk festival in Tang and Song dynasties. The lore of “tide birthday” appeared and spread among the people in the Jiangnan area after the Yuan Dynasty, and there were sacrificing ceremonies as well. However, the adoration of “Tide God” along the Qiantang River was rarely seen in other places, indicating the different impacts of tide on the local society, and the local adaption of man-land relationship in this area.

Collected by the Nanjing Museum, the Atlas of Border Towns mainly depicts fifteen border towns of significance in Ming dynasty. It used to be collected and commented by Yizhai. The atlas is also compiled into Atlas of Ancient Maps in China (Ming Dynasty) and Collection of Ming Dynasty Maps. After been inspected by Zhang Baochai, the atlas gradually draws attention from the academic circle. According to the current research, the atlas was produced during the 32nd to 33rd year of the Wanli's reign of Ming Dynasty, with Luo Hongxian's Enlarged Terrestrial Atlas as its main reference. Its collector, Yizhai, was believed to have lived in Qing Dynasty. However, after examination and verification, it is proved that the atlas was drawn during the 3rd to 4th year of Kangxi's reign of Qing Dynasty. The author of the work, whose surname is Huang, was a Ming loyalist. He mainly referred to Chen Zushou's Atlas of Territories of August Ming. The collector of the work, Yizhai, is Cheng Zhiqing, a seal carver from Suzhou. Bonze Yiling could be inferred as Qu Dajun, a famous scholar who lived in the early Qing Dynasty.

The Northwest Frontiers Military and Political Documents from the Song Dynasty is an important Heishuicheng document of Chinese secular literature collected in Russia. It has 109 pages, covering topics including grain and grass loan, Immigration, personal lawsuit, military supplies application, etc. Some of the geographical information contained in this document are not to be found in traditional historical records of the Song and Tangut (West Xia) frontiers. Based on analyzing the relevant geographic terms and information, the author finds out the new situation and new problems including the administrative system, crop transmission, traffics, city-village system and so on, in this paper. They are further used to enact the mutual confirmation between excavated documents and traditional historical records, to complete the missing parts in traditional historical records, and to enhance the understanding of the historical geography and social conditions of the Song and Tangut frontiers.

Selecting the population data of settlement in 1934, 1982, and 2019 in Tumote plain, the distribution pattern evolution and its driving factors of settlement in the study area were analyzed through using GIS spatial analysis methods and combining qualitative and qualitative analysis. The results show that: during 1934-2019, the scale system of settlement in the study area was dominated by small settlement. The number and proportion of settlement with larger populations increased year by year and the population hierarchical structure showed a pyramid shape from “flat” to “long-tall”. The spatial distribution pattern of settlement showed the characteristics of agglomeration distribution as a whole. The agglomeration of large-scale settlements is not significant, and the distribution pattern of the other three levels of settlements changed from uniform to agglomeration distribution model. The population polarization in the study area was significant. The non-equilibrium development trend of the spatial distribution of the study area was obvious, showing signs of evolution from pole nucleus type to Pole-axis type. The spatial neighbor effect of network connection of settlement was significant, and the central urban area with a large population became a strong connection node. Terrain, river and traffic were the main driving factors for the evolution of the distribution pattern of the settlement in the study area during 1934-2019. The settlement showed strong spatial orientation to low altitude, and were significantly close to rivers, roads and towns. This study facilitates the clarification of the evolution of the settlement distribution patterns in the Tumut Plain in the past 100 years, and provides a certain reference value for the optimization and regulation of the spatial layout of local settlements.

The Zhendi Circuit of Xinjiang during the Qing Dynasty was formed on the basis of both the Anxi circuit and the Liangwu Circuit of Urumqi. During the relatively peaceful era before the Tongzhi period, the Zhendi Circuit functioned in the capacity of provincial governor and surveillance commissioner. There were formal and hierarchical administrative districts and sub-official defence posts that also functioned as administrative district under its jurisdiction. It was administered by the Viceroy of Shaanxi and Gansu, and at the same time jointly liaised to the Urumqi Dutong, while Urumqi Dutong was a subordinate to the Yili General before the Tongzhi period. However, the Governor of Shaanxi and Gansu not being based at Urumqi meant that its administration was to a large extent remote, and the Yili General’s control over the Urumqi Dutong was nominal, which made Urumqi Dutong’s administration to Zhendi Circuit rather uninterrupted. As such, the Circuit Intendant took the mandate of provincial governor and surveillance commissioner, and that of Dutong was comparable to Viceroy. The district formed was a special type of quasi-provincial jurisdiction: the Urumqi Dutong, which was relatively independent. This special administration system was imitated in other districts that were facing similar situation for reference purpose.

Super typhoons are one of the most severe natural disasters affecting China’s coastal areas. Relying on modern research results of typhoons, this paper uses historical local gazettes, archives, newspapers and other materials to deduct six indicators, including the wind scales, death toll, house damage, crop loss, official and public relief policy, and typhoon impact range, to develop a method for identifying super typhoons in the historical period. It is applied to reconstructing the super typhoon affecting Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai area from 1640-1949, and the results are in turn statistically tested against the records of super typhoons from 1950-2019. This study shows that this method is robust in identifying the super typhoon events in the historical period. The reconstructed sequence shows that an average of 2.3 super typhoons occurs every 10 years, and there are obvious fluctuations in its frequency, which are different from that of general typhoons.