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.

The flow direction of the mainstream shifted from southwards to northwards in the Chang-Xi-Cheng District, northwest of the Taihu Lake Basin, from pre-Han Dynasty to today. The turning point was approximately between the Tang and Song Dynasties. This was driven by the long-term external factors such as the advance and retreat of coastlines, the variation of tidal power and the water storage and drainage situations in the Taihu Lake Basin over historical periods. Influenced by the variation of mainstream flow directions, the reclamation process of Furong Lake can be divided into three stages. Before the Tang Dynasty, the reclamation attempts in the Furong Lake Area were mainly conducted in the east of Wuxi and the south of the primitive Grand Canal in Wuxi section to adapt to southward characteristics of the mainstream flow in this time. Such projects changed the original form of the south edge of the Furong lake, and shaped the boundary-con-bank between the Furong lake, primitive canal and Taihu Lake. In mid-Tang Dynasty, the south edge of the the Furong Lake retreated by nine li (traditional Chinese length units, one li equals 500 meters approximately) north of the Wuxi section of the Grand Canal. The overall hydrological pattern in the Song Dynasty made it hard for the long-lasting success of reclamations of the Furong lake. All the attempts in this time such as the dredging of river channels and the construction of weir and gate system were soon proved unsustainable. The variation of hydrological patterns in not only the Chang-Xi-Cheng District but also the entire Taihu Lake Basin since the Yuan and Ming Dynasties was the fundamental factor for the complete and final reclamation success of the Furong lake. The dynamic variation of water flows was not only affected the reclamation process of the Furong Lake, but also recorded in the writings of relevant historical material.

The Sacred Mountain and Holy Lakes located in the grand Yarlung Tsanpo Valley in the southern part of Ali Region, Tibet, that have been listed in the Preparation List of World Heritage Sites of Natural and Cultural Heritage include the Mount Gang Rinpoche, the Lake Mapam Yutso, the Lake Lana Tso. The four rivers originated in the vicinity are the Senge Kabab (the lion river), the langchen Kabab (the elephant river), the Macha Kabab (the peacock river), and the Tsangpo Kabab (the horse river), all which are the source of several world-famous rivers, such as the Indus River, the Ganges River, the Yarlung Tsanpo River and the Brahmaputra River.

In the ancient tradition of China and India, the Gang Renboqi mountain and its surrounding lakes and rivers had extremely important symbolic meanings, and they were the geographical landmarks indicating the center of the cosmological world. In the historical period, there were four ancient divine worldviews being formed around the Sacred Mountain and Holy Lakes in Ali, Tibet.

The first one is recognized by the local Bon religion of Zhangzhung culture in Ali area; the second one is the cosmological world center of anavatapta, which is recognized by Buddhism; the third one is the cosmological world center of Kunlun Mountain and Yao-chi, which is recognized by the ancient Chinese Book of Mountains and Seas; and the fourth one is the cosmological world center of Kailash (Kailasa), which was recognized by Hinduism. The four cosmography systems originated independently, formed their own special cognitive systems, and communicated and merged with other systems in history.

The integration of the Kunlun Mountain cosmological world view and the Buddhist Anavatapta cosmological world view happened around 1 500 years ago, and the new world view had a wide range of impact on ancient Chinese cosmography. In 1720, this world view was projected on the surveyed map, and the ancient subjective cognition was finally located into the concrete geographical objects of the Sacred Mountains and Lakes.

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.

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.

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.

The Royal Road System was a road network of the Persian Empire, and routes of the Royal Road System have long been disputed among scholars. The records in Herodotus's History and Persepolis Administrative Archives reflect the general characteristics of the Royal Road which are also the criteria for identifying them from ancient roads. Although multidisciplinary research methods have provided assistances to the reconstruction of routes of the Royal Road System, they also caused many controversies. In general, routes of the Royal Road System in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Armenia are relatively accurate. There is no way to infer routes of the Royal Road System in Egypt or Arabia. Routes of the Royal Road System in eastern satrapies are based on classical texts. However, the Royal Roads were not the general term for ancient roads in Persian Empire, and the diachronic changes of ancient roads are still very significant. With the help of the interpretation of cuneiform characters, archaeological excavations and scientific historical geography, the study of the Royal Road System may will overcome its dependence on classical texts research.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Goulan Shan was one of the most important landmarks on the route between China and Java in the Yuan-Ming Period. Scholars usually believe that Goulan Shan is located to the southwest of Kalimantan Island and known as Gelam Island now. However, newly discovered Chinese inscriptions in Indonesia indicate that Serutu Island is where Goulan Shan was located. Through comparative analysis of geographic remote sensing data and traditional documents, the records on Goulan Shan are roughly consistent with the geographical environment of Serutu Island and its surrounding areas, but are quite different from that of Gelam Island. The invasion by the Yuan Dynasty into Java indirectly contributed to the prosperity of Serutu Island in late Yuan and early Ming, while the policy of maritime embargo in Ming Dynasty and the depletion of animal resources may be the main reasons for the decline of the island's status after the mid-Ming.

From June to August in the 46th year of Kangxi (1707), there was no continuous precipitation in the Yangtze River Delta, which caused a large-scale drought. Based on the quantified scores of the hazard at county level, the spread of the drought was restored. It was mainly distributed between 30°-33°N, formed a serious disaster center in the Taihu Lake Basin.The daily precipitation sequence from May to August in the Yangtze River Delta was reconstructed by using Yang Dapiao diary. Through the analysis, it is concluded that the reason for the drought is that the subtropical high pressure is stronger than usual in that year, and the its northward movement is also coming earlier, resulting in the rapid northward movement of the rain belt and the abnormality in the Meiyu period. In addition, the drought is strongly related with solar activity and ENSO events.

The inner city of the Zhengzhou was also where the center of ancient Zhengzhou Shang City had been located. In the past, researchers thought that when Guan Xian (管县) was set up in Han dynasties, a new northern city wall was added. However, it did not accord with the historical records. Within the limit of the inner wall of the Zhengzhou Shang City, ordinary residential remains of Han periods showed no obvious rural-urban distinction. The new city wall was built during the Tang Dynasty rather than Han periods. The settlements in the Zhengzhou Shang City area in Han dynasties were under the control of the Xian level, playing an important role in the regional transport network. This study is also of interest to understanding the historical changes of the urban form of ancient Zhengzhou.

Due to the lack of altitude gradient of sewers and scouring capacity of rivers, the old sewerage system in the Shanghai International Settlement was not fully capable of handling domestic waste. In the 1910s, in order to cope with the challenge brought by water-closets, the Municipal Council decided to build an underground separate sewerage system to accomplish the transformation of sewage treatment method from combined sewers to separate sewers. From 1921 to 1934, on the basis of combining the experience of Anglo- American municipal engineering and the geographical situation of Shanghai, the Council gradually constructed a brand-new sewer network with three levels including the main, the subsidiary and house sewers. Through the spatial competition and functional linkage between the sewers and other municipal pipelines, the upgrading of the sewerage system had brought about the integration of urban subterranean space.

The Minzhou Zongguanfu (General Administration Office) was the product of the deteriorating of the relationship between Tang and Tuyuhun which was moving from cooperation to conflict. During the Wude period, the jurisdiction of the governor’s government expanded from north to south, reflecting the Tang defense strategy in the face of the aggressions from the Tuyuhun. By expanding the jurisdiction of the Minzhou General Administration Office, the Tang Dynasty first established a linkage between the prefectures in the Taoshui and Qiangshui basin with Minzhou as the pivot to protect the Weihe Valley passage from Chang’an to the Western Regions. Subsequently, a Wuzhou node was established to connect theprefectures in the Qiangshui and Baishui basins to protect the Sanguan Road from Yizhou to Chang’an. During the Zhenguan period, its jurisdiction shrank from south to north and east to west in accordance with Tang’s military advances. By reducing the area under the jurisdiction of the Minzhou Dudufu (succeeding the Zongguanfu) and the division of territory with the Songzhou Dudufu, the Tang could focus on pacifyng the Tangut and regime change of the Tuyuhun. Behind this expansion and shrinkage of jurisdiction hides the irreconcilable conflict between Tang and Tuyuhun over border security, which proved to be the norm rather than the temporary cooperation.

During the Puppet Qi Dynasty, Mianchi County(渑池) was changed to “沔池” to avoid breaking the taboo of using a character from Emperor Jin Taizu's name, namely Wanyan Min. “渑” is a multi-syllabic character, and when used as the county name it does not involve taboos. The regime of Jin Dynasty does not avoid this word. But to please Jin, the Puppet Qi deem “渑” as a taboo character, and used the nearest homonymous character “沔” as a substitute. After the Jin Dynasty re-ruled Henan, they did not change back the county name, and the Jin never strictly avoid the word “渑”. “沔池” was used as the official name during the Jin Dynasty, and it became alias of the county in later dynasties interchangeable with “渑池”. In the new and old annotated versions of Jin Shi, it should be restored where “沔池” had been mistakenly changed to “渑池”. For other literature, unless there is sufficient evidence that “渑池” was used in the original version, “沔池” should be kept and not changed into “渑池”.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

In the early Qing Dynasty, the boundary dispute between Ordos Mongolian and Ningxia Garrison over the Cha Han Tuo Hu(查汉托护) is essentially the competition for natural resources between the Mongols and Han. The resolution of the boundary disputes reflected the transformation of the nation of ethnic management and border governance of the central government in the early Qing Dynasty,as well as the improvement of its governance capability. Through a series of economic, political and military manoeuvre, the Qing government completed the adjustment of the administrative territory of Cha Han Tuo Hu. It was mainly reflected in three aspects: firstly Cha Han Tuo Hu was made in agricultural area through establishing a system of irrigation and raising farmers for rehabilitation,thus changing the main economic attributes of the territory. Secondly,by establishing the county system, Cha Han Tuo Hu was incorporated into the inland and local administrative system of prefectures, which truly transformed the political nature of the Ningxia Garrison from border land to inland. Thirdly a new patrolling and defensive system was established in Cha Han Tuo Hu area, which was similar to local security system in other inland provinces in the Qing Dynasty, and eventually replaced the Weisuo system the Qing had inherited from the Ming Dynasty.

The tiers of prefectures and counties are important indicators that reflect their political status, population and economic importance. By using historical quantitative analysis and GIS analysis methods, this paper unpacks the spatiotemporal changes of 339 prefectures and 1 607 counties in Tang Dynasty. The results show that: (1) The number of prefecture tier Fu (府), Fu (辅), Xiong (雄) and county tier Chi (赤), Ji (畿), Ci-Chi (次赤) and Ci-Ji (次畿) was relatively stable in Tang Dynasty, while the number of Shang (上), Zhong (中), Xia (下) prefectures and counties changed drastically. In the late Tang Dynasty, the number of upgraded prefectures and counties was more than that of degraded prefectures and counties, with the most significant hierarchical change took place from Kaiyuan (713-741) to Yuanhe (806-820). (2) The spatio-temporal changes of prefectures and counties in Tang Dynasty was “high in the north and low in the south”. Guanzhong Plain was the highest area in the prefecture and county level. The temporal change was “falling in the north and rising in the south”. The Plain of Hubei and Hunan, Poyang Lake Plain and Taihu Plain in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River rose most significantly. (3) The tiers of prefectures and counties in the vicinity of the capital of the Tang Dynasty were most affected by political factors, while the tiers of the frontier fortresses and traffic throats were most affected by military factors. Other prefectures’ and counties’ tiers were mainly affected by economic factors, especially population size. (4) The spatio-temporal changes of the tiers of prefectures and counties in Tang Dynasty reflected the eastward and southward movement of the national political, demographic, urban and economic centers after the An-Shi Rebellion in the middle of the Tang Dynasty.

Since the Northern Song Dynasty, Yudi Guangji has been issued in many different versions. In addition to the original version, there were two more re-issued editions from the Southern Song Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, many more editions were issued either based on the original version or the re-issued versions. The Qing versions are on the one hand comparatively independent from each other, and on the other hand complementary to each other. To compile the best edition of Yudi Guangji, one has to rely on the original Northern Song Dynasty version, and consult with the other versions.

In the Luoyang Basin during the Han, Wei, Sui, and Tang dynasties, the flow patterns of the Yi, Luo, Chan, and Jian rivers were closely related to their geological setting. The orientations of these rivers are predominantly determined by the underlying geological fault lines of the basin. The orientations of the Yi and Luo rivers are mainly determined by east-west and northeast-oriented fault lines, with the flow path of the Luo River primarily influenced by the Matun-Yanshi fault and the Yi River influenced by the Yiyang-Yanshi fault. Jian and Chan Rivers share simultaneous spatial similarities and transient transformation similarities, both following city site migrations, turning from being sectioned eastward during Han and Wei dynasties to falling back to the natural southward flow during Sui and Tang dynasties. Luo River exhibited a trend of continual northward transformation during Han, Wei, Sui, and Tang dynasties, while Yi River constantly extends eastward and southward. Over historical periods, the Yi and Luo rivers gradually separated north and south, with their confluence point shifting eastward. Unequal north-south subsidence and a northward tilt of the sedimentary center caused Luo River to migrate northward, while a central bulge and ‘two cut first base’complex fault depression caused Yi River to extend eastward and southward.