During the confrontation between the Northern Song and the Liao dynasties, the song army attached great importance to the northern border defense system of Hedong Lu. The defense line runs for more than 400 miles, along which a defense system with Daizhou as the center, and Fanshi and Guxian as the East and West wing respectively, has been formed. It mainly consists of citadels and fortresses and the aim is to deter the southward attacks through the Xiagu road of the Liao army. The fortresses are surrounded by defensive facilities such as square fields, protective forests, stone walls, ditches, and beacon towers. Taken together, they form a defense system integrating the functions of monitoring, reconnaissance, counter-attacking, military information transmission and so on. Horizontally, the distances between fortresses in different regions ranged from eight to seventy miles, with the majority at around thirty. Vertically, they rely on hinterland counties and towns, thus forming a three-tier defense system, which played a key role in the border defense system of the Northern Song 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.

传统观点以为,汉初豫章郡属淮南国,在今赣南。仔细梳理西汉文献所记汉初史事,豫章郡应属吴国,在今皖南。豫章郡因治于故鄣县,又名“故鄣郡”。魏晋时期,讹“故鄣郡”为“鄣郡”。汉初豫章郡先后属楚王韩信、荆王刘贾、吴王刘濞。《史记》所记淮南王英布、长沙王吴芮领有豫章郡乃“虚封”。景帝三年,汉廷将豫章郡一分为二,北部并入江都国;南部与庐江郡合并,改称“庐江豫章郡”。传世汉代封泥“庐江豫守”,即“庐江豫章郡守”,而非以往认为的庐江国豫章郡守。景、武之际,江淮之间另立庐江郡,汉廷更庐江豫章郡为豫章郡。元封二年,武帝从豫章郡中分置丹阳郡,豫章郡从此仅辖赣江流域,遂有《汉书·地理志》之规模。

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.

The Qing government achived effective governance of the whole of Guizhou province by altering the native chieftain system into governmental appointed officials, establishing garrisons, county-level administrations and pioneering new frontiers, ending up the situation that all were wild beyond the settled line. This also rendered great changes in the patterns of military geography. The Qing government transformed the linear defense military mode of the Ming dynasty into a more ambitious “two-governor” system: one in Anshun to control the hinderland of Guizhou, and the other in Guiyang to manage the soldiers from the newly subdivided land. Both of the governors could mobilize the troops around the province. In addition, a generalship was set up in Zhenyuan to safeguard the eastern courier route and gain special control of the new land of Songtao, Taigong and Qingjiang. Generals of Weining, Guzhou and Anyi were also set up to manage the northwest, southeast and southwest, respectively. The new governance penetrated into countryside and achieved the goal of controlling the province as a whole.

Putianze (圃田泽), an ancient lake in the Yellow River Basin, serves as an ideal subject for exploring the evolutionary patterns of lakes and swamps on the alluvial plains of the Yellow River’s lower reaches. Based on the historical geographical reconstruction methods, this study delineates the process of Putianze’s silting and disappearance during the Ming and Qing dynasties and analyzes the driving factors behind the background. According to the study, it reveals that the rapid disappearance of Putianze was the result of the long-term cumulative effects of sediment deposition and lake water drainage. This process is characterized by ‘lake silting and human encroachment’, ultimately leading to its transformation into land between the Qianlong and Tongzhi reigns of Qing Dynasty. The direct cause of Putianze’s disappearance was sediment deposition following Yellow River breaches, while long-term human intervention accelerated this process.

The Army Map Service (AMS) was a professional military mapping agency established by the U.S. military during World War II. The 1:250 000 China topographic map is a medium-scale topographic map series compiled by the AMS in the 1950s. This set of maps primarily reflects the geographical situation of China from the end of the Comprehensive Anti-Japanese War to the period just before 1949. The accuracy of the topographic maps is contingent upon whether the U.S. military conducted actual surveys in the area and the quality of the data sources. The data sources primarily consist of American, Japanese, and Chinese maps, as well as aerial photography, making them the most accurate medium-scale topographic maps reflecting modern standards at the time. The versioning and compilation cycles of the topographic maps are tied to the operational needs of the U.S. military, with faster updating and publication speeds for maps near theaters of war. Overall, this map series represents an organic integration of numerous modern cartographic achievements and stands as the most accurate medium-scale topographic map reflecting contemporary surface features. Furthermore, the standardized processing of these maps also offers new opportunities for cross-regional historical geography research.

Based on Qing dynasty Shilu and historical accounts, as well as reports, photographs and maps from Chinese and foreign expeditions, this paper marks the first successful search in a century for the site of the Qianlong Westernmost Ji Gong Stele, which was located far beyond current borders, by pinpointing it and presenting the results promptly for repetitive examination by academics and society in the ‘Silk Road GIS’, and will also be included in the Qing Dynasty Atlas. This monument stands as an important symbol of the formation of the Qing Dynasty’s territory at its peak.

During the period of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Suiyuan, which was located in the western part of the Northern Agricultural Pastoral Ecotone, underwent diversified changes in its industrial structure in response to changes in the situation at home and abroad. Diversification became a prominent feature of local economic geography. By the 1930s, it was mainly reflected in the non-local primary industries of agriculture, industry, commerce and transportation, which infiltrated, superimposed and transformed with the local native nomadic economy into a modernity and diversified regional economic system. Before that, it could only be called piecemeal changes, rather than full scale changes. Thereafter, Suiyuan had evolved from a nomadic landscape of cattle and sheep throughout the territory in the early Qing Dynasty, to a new pattern of diversified industries in the late Republic of China, which was characterized by pastoral farming, numerous industrial enterprises, prosperous domestic and foreign trade, and interlaced roads and railways. It had become a common home for Mongolian and Han peoples with a prosperous regional economic and harmonious inter-ethnicity relations.

The Huai River is one of the major rivers in China, and its main course is documented in Volume 30 of Commentary on the Waterways Classic (Shuijing Zhu), the Chapter Describing the Huai River, which holds significant historical value. Although existing studies have frequently referenced the Chapter Describing the Huai River, a systematic discussion of its text remains rare. Given this, there is an urgent need for a multidimensional and in-depth investigation of the Chapter Describing the Huai River, which pertains to the segment from the source of the Huai River to Xinxi (新息) County, from perspectives such as textual collation, exploration of historical sources, geographical verification, and map interpretation. Besides, the focus should be on providing reasonable explanations for key issues such as the source of the Huai River, the changes in the administrative center of Yiyang (义阳) Prefecture, and the reconstruction of Hongxi Pond, and depicting scientifically accurate maps of Chapter Describing the Huai River through a comparative analysis of historical and contemporary data. This will advance the study of Commentary on the Waterways Classic and provide essential academic support for related fields.

The Tang Dynasty Chinese cliff carvings discovered in the Dil mountain of Ulziit in the central Gobi Province of Mongolia indicate that this area was an important node on the grassland transportation line at that time. The route through the desert to capital of the Uyghur Empire, as recorded in the New Book of Tang passed through this area as the ‘Eastern Uyghur Road’, also known as the ‘the road of having an audience with Tengri Khan’. The inscriptions were carved during the rule of restraint period of the Tang Dynasty in the second year of Linde, which confirmed the historical event that Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty offered sacrifices to heaven and earth in Mount Tai and invited the leaders of Tiele tribes in the Boreal desert to come, which reflected the communications between the Tang Dynasty and the northern nomads and the control of the Tang government over the vassal prefectures in the Boreal desert.

The delimitation of sea defense zones forms the basis of the spatial deployment of sea defense. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the military defense area boundaries of the Zhoushan Islands were divided into three main levels: the boundaries of the Wei(卫) and Zhen(镇), the boundaries of the inland and outer seas, and the boundaries of the Suo(所) and Ying(营). The northern boundary of the Wei or Zhen corresponded with the provincial boundary, which was delineated by Chenqian(陈钱)to Bixia(壁下) in Ming Dynasty and by Yang Mountain(羊山) to Maji(马迹) in Qing Dynasty. The southern boundary was marked by Nantian(南田), Jiantiao(健跳), and Niutou Mountain(牛头山) in Ming Dynasty, and by the Tianhou Palace(天后宫) at the southern end of Shipu Town(石浦镇) in Qing Dynasty. The western boundary, which extended far inland during the Ming Dynasty, was divided along the coast of Zhenhai(镇海) and Xiangshan(象山) in Qing Dynasty. The boundaries between the inland and outer seas were indicated by a line that included Wuyu Mountain(五屿山), Liangtou Cave(两头洞), Changtu(长涂), Luojia Mountain(洛泇山), Taohua Mountain(桃花山), Jiancang(尖仓), Jiushan(韭山), and Tantou(檀头). There were distinct boundaries between the five garrisons of the Ming Dynasty and the five green standard armies of the Qing Dynasty. These defense boundaries often crossed district political boundaries but never crossed prefectural or provincial boundaries. The boundaries of the inland and outer seas, as well as those of the garrisons and the Suo and Ying, were determined based on defense tasks and the natural maritime environment.

The Yongshun Tusi (永顺土司) in Huguang (湖广) region was firstly established during the Yuan Dynasty and was subsequently granted titles such as Anfusi (Pacification Commissioner), Xuanfusi (Consolation Commissioner), and Xuanweishisi (Consolation and Pacification Commissioner). It was eventually replaced by the bureaucratization of native officers during the Yongzheng reign of the Qing Dynasty. Historically, this was one of the principal Tusi in the Huguang region, and then was successively subordinate to the Sichuan Provincial Administration, the Huguang Provincial Administration, and the Huguang Military Commission. It governed multiple Zhangguansi (native offices) and Tuzhou (native prefectures). The changes in its rank, office location, and jurisdiction reflect the ebb and flow of its power. This paper takes Yongshun Tusi as the research object. Utilizing a variety of sources, including archives, historical records, official histories, local chronicles, genealogies, ancient maps, inscriptions, archaeological reports, and other materials, it clarifies the geographical evolution of Yongshun Tusi, as well as its administrative subordination, location, and jurisdiction, and provides a detailed and in-depth portrayal of its historical evolution.

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.

The Qing government promulgated the Act of Town-country Self-Government in 1909, which established the “town-country system” as the grass-roots autonomous divisions. Since then, with the disintegration of “Quasi-compound administrative districts pattern” which had been formed since the Qin and Han dynasties, the grass-roots divisions have entered the period of a unified and full-functional “Country-town system”. However, the initial practice of“town-country system” was not fully complied with rigid regulations. In Guangdong Province, where the grass-roots militias were prevalent, most of the grass-roots autonomous divisions followed the “County-district” mode rather than “Urban, town and country” system as defined in the act. The division and allocation of “District”actually originated from the local grass-roots military defense divisions “Tuan”. That is to say, the modern grass-roots autonomous divisions derive from the grass-roots militias corps. To a large extent, with the functions of public security defense, administrative management and quasi-autonomy, the grass-roots militia corps not only met the establishment requirements of the grass-roots autonomous divisions, but also the internal needs of Guangdong’s grass-roots social governance at that time.

Analysis on the spatio-temporal changes and types of 229 Paleolithic sites in Northeast China shows that, the early sites were distributed sparsely in the foothills of Qianshan Mountain and the eastern Songnen Plain, with about 57.1% of them located at less than 200 meters above the sea level. The ruins type was predominatly mountain and hillock platform type. In the middle period, the sites were mainly distributed on both banks of rivers and streams in the eastern mountains. About 58.8% of the sites were in the area between 200-400 meters above the sea level, and the type of the sites was mainly river valley terrace type. The distribution of the late sites basically extended to as far as half of the Northeast, especially in the middle and lower reaches of Nenjiang River, the lower reaches of Liaohe River, the foothills of Qianshan Mountain,the lower reaches of Mudan River, the upper reaches of Muling River, Buerhatong River basin, Suifenhe River basin and other regions. About 49.4% of ruins were located in the area between 200-400 meters above the sea level, and the type of ruins was mainly valley terrace type. A few were hillock platform type or mountain hilly type. The spatial distribution of the ruins gradually expanded from the southeast to the northwest and from low altitude to high altitude. This change may be the result of diversified strategies such as improving stone tools technology, maintaining high mobility, changing hunting methods, and strengthening resource utilization so as to adapt to climate and environmental changes.

A key Kangxi-era reform in Yunnan’s local governance incorporated military garrisons (卫所) into adjacent civil administrations, consolidating dispersed garrison taxes and military household registrations. This process was complicated when the rebel Daxi Army (led by Zhang Xianzhong) and Wu Sangui successively established military and princely estates through land confiscations during the Ming-Qing transition, blurring military-civilian land distinctions and social identities. These actions created institutional loopholes enabling military households—whose tax obligations and registrations spanned multiple jurisdictions—to merge into civilian registries. The ensuing ‘Tonghai-Hexi Border Dispute’ (“通河分疆”) exemplifies these tensions: a county-level conflict over corvée obligations from Seven Longhuo military colonies (龙火七营). This case illuminates Qing efforts to unify household registrations and land taxes during garrison-county integration, fundamentally rooted in disparate corvée burdens that critically shaped military-civil administration reforms.

In the early Qing Dynasty, the official strategy for managing the Yellow and Huai River floods largely adhered to the Ming Dynasty’s water management philosophy, prioritizing ‘restraint’ over ‘dredging’. During Emperor Kangxi’s reign, the policy of ‘opening the sea outlets’ was effectively implemented with imperial intervention, fundamentally aimed at achieving ‘diversion to the sea’ by deepening the drainage channels and expanding the sea outlets along the coastal counties of the Xiahe Area. As the water conditions of the Yellow River, Huai River, the Grand Canal, and Hongze Lake evolved, the deepening of river channels alone could no longer effectively direct waters from the central lowlands to the coastal accumulation zones, resulting in frequent overflows and disasters. Therefore, during Emperor Qianlong’s reign, embankments were constructed along the sides of the returning-to-sea rivers to confine the waters. Concurrently, the construction of polder fields began, linking with river embankments to establish a polder system in the coastal counties of the Xiahe Area. Influenced by the eastward flow of water and the impact of the ocean, the water environment and the construction of embankments in these coastal counties exhibited characteristics of complex and dynamic changes.

The 1930s-1940s witnessed two relocations of Songzi (松滋) County’s administrative center on the south bank of Yangtze River—a quintessential case of water-environment changes triggering cascading effects. During the late Qing Dynasty, the formation of the ‘Bei Jiang Nan Tuo’ (North Mainstream, South Distributaries, 北江南沱) and Songzi River diminished the original shipping advantages of Songzi Town while establishing new hydrological hubs. This transformation reconfigured regional transportation networks and intra-county transit patterns, thereby shifting market-town distributions and economic centers. Consequently, a ‘north-south division’ emerged in political geography, directly driving the administrative relocations. Unlike disaster- or war-induced moves, these transfers resulted from natural geographical changes through causal chains that ultimately altered political geographical patterns. Both relocations reflect compounded effects of transportation, economic, and political geographical factors stemming from water-environment evolution.

The development of modern China’s mechanized flour milling industry can be broadly divided into four stages, yet the development across different regions was highly uneven. The establishment and location selection of typical factories reveal that the site choices for mechanized flour milling were the result of a combination of natural resource endowment, regional economic and cultural environments, and the personal concepts of entrepreneurs. Unlike Western flour industries, which were largely influenced by natural factors, the location selection of modern China’s mechanized flour milling industry was more significantly affected by regional economic factors such as transportation, capital, and sales markets. The locational evolution of the national capital mechanized flour milling industry in modern China conforms to the ‘port-hinterland’ model, with industrial development levels exhibiting a gradient decrease from the coastal areas to the inland regions.

《敬止录》收一摹写本宋代城市水域地图,名《庆元府城内大小二湖丈尺图》。南宋嘉定十三年八月,庆元府城(属今浙江宁波)南部遭遇严重火灾,日、月二湖虽为城市水库,湖域却因沿岸大族宅邸的占据而日益缩小,知府俞建于火灾次年组织绘制该图,目的在于界定城市水域,以保障居民生活与防火用水。地图详绘了嘉定间庆元府籍朝廷政要聚居的二湖及其周边街区,展现了湖域在四明大族庄园扩张的背景下再度萎缩的景象。该图与《宝庆四明志》所附《罗城》图同为描绘火灾后庆元府城景象的地图,极具史料价值。

The road from Yizhou(伊州) to Xizhou(西州) in Tang Dynasty underwent a transformation process from south to north. In the early Tang Dynasty, the water environment of Shaer Lake, situated at the heart of the Hami Basin, was particularly favorable. Consequently, people of the Tang Dynasty incorrectly identified Shaer Lake as either Puchang(蒲昌) Lake or Pulei(蒲类) Lake. There was a Yiwu(伊吾) Road passing through the water area of Shaer Lake in the early Tang Dynasty, which was distinct from the later Chiting(赤亭) Road, also known as the Yixi(伊西) Road, and the Xinka (新开) Road, or Yixi North Road. The Yiwu Road was a segment of Xuanzang??s(玄奘) Journey to the West, and the Jiaohedao(交河道) Army expanded upon it by developing the Liuzhong(柳中) Road. Following the establishment of Xizhou, the Tang Dynasty utilized Gaochang(高昌) City as the military and political hub to oversee Pulei Lake, progressively developing the road from Puchang County to Luohu(罗护) in Xizhou. After 702, when Beiting(北庭) became the military and political center of the eastern Tianshan Mountains, direct military and administrative communications between the central government and Beiting increased in frequency, leading to the development of a postal road from Nazhi(纳职) County to Luohu in Yizhou. The roads from Puchang County to Luohu and from Nazhi County to Luohu were linked, ultimately forming the postal route from Yizhou to Xizhou.

《汉书·地理志》记录了百余条水道里程,这些里程数字是实际测量的结果,统计精确度较高。受测量条件限制,汉代测量水道里程需要依托航道、堤岸、河谷等交通道路进行,《汉志》中记录的里程数字是水道作为交通通道的河段里程,并不是水道完整的流程。利用《汉志》水道里程的统计结果,可以构建出汉代以江、河、淮、郁等大河为主干彼此连通、延展的水道交通网络。通过定量研究,可揭示汉代水道交通能力南方优于北方的基本特征,以及河水水系、淮济水系、江水水系、郁水水系不同的水道交通模式。

During the Hongzhi Period, Bai Ang (白昂) dug the Kangji River, a new waterway in the east of Gaoyou Lake through farmland, thus an extensive lake field called ‘circle field’ (圈田) was created between the new river and the lake. It acted as a barrier of the canal to circumvent the dangers posed by the lake’s turbulent floods. In the period of Zhengde and Jiajing, changes in land cultivation along the lakeside and alterations in levy methods led to the disruption of canal infrastructure and organization, which resulted in a worse trend of canal siltation and lake water level rise. From Longqing to Wanli era, the canal embankment repeatedly breached, leading to different views among local elites and river officials regarding whether to retain the Kangji River and the circle fields or not. The former tried to consolidate the field as taxable assets, while the latter emphasized on the importance of the embankment. Finally, Wu Guifang rebuilt the Gaoyou canal and the old embankment. The Kangji River was abandoned. The submerged circle fields also lost their significance. The dynamic interplay between the lakeside fields in Gaoyou and the changes of the water environment, intertwining in the process of the reform of the tax and levy, jointly influenced the canal projects.