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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Jianghan Plain has long maintained a dominant position in rice-based grain production, and this dominance has persisted continuously into modern times. With the constantly evolving domestic and foreign economic conditions and the growing connection between ports and the hinterland, there has been a gradual increase in the proportion of cotton cultivation. This resulted in a spatial division of labor in crop cultivation. Research on the changes in crop cultivation in the Jianghan Plain reveals that the geographical environment in which small-scale farmers are located influenced their crop selection. While external economic conditions enhanced the competitiveness of specific crops, the location of ports constrained the extent of trade expansion. Finally, the analysis of changes in crop cultivation demonstrates that the economic advantages historically held by Hankou had become a significant factor in the widening gap between inland and coastal areas during the process of modernization.

The Bingbei Dao was an important military institution in the Ming Dynasty. During the Jiajing reign, in response to the transprovincial maneuvers of the “mineral thieves” in eastern Guangdong and the intrusion of Japanese pirates, the Shenwei Dao was set up in Pingyuan County in Southern Jiangxi. Later, Pingyuan County was transferred to Chaozhou-fu in Guangdong province. Accordingly, Shenwei Dao was transferred from “dual control” under the governors of Southern Jiangxi and Guangdong to exclusively under the Governor of Guangdong. As a result, Shenwei Dao’s seat was also moved from Pingyuan County to Huizhou-fu. After the stability of eastern Guangdong Province, Shenwei Dao was abolished in the period of Wanli. The changes of Shenwei Dao’s command, responsibility, jurisdiction, and residence was a typical case of Bingbei Daos in the middle to the late Ming Dynasty. The abolition and division adjustment of the Shenwei Dao also reflected the changes of the complex military situation in Lingdong region of Guangdong Province in the same period.

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.

Feng Guifen, a thinker in the late Qing Dynasty, once designed a set of surveying and mapping methods in his masterpiece Protest from the Jiaobin Studio. It is based on the square grid style and centered on field surveying, and contains angle, distance and topographic surveying and mapping. It was effectively practiced in the field surveying work of Chuansha Ting and was also partially applied to the later surveying work of the Map of Jiangsu Province during the Tongzhi Reign. Feng Guifen’s not only inherited and integrated traditional Chinese map-making techniques, but also made improvement and innovation in order to meet practical needs. It reflects the pursuit and desire of the society for accurate maps, as well as the attempts and attention cast by the contemporaries onto advancing surveying and mapping technology. Underlying is a complex process of collision and fusion of Chinese and Western modes of knowledge, which offers a perspective for the study of the modernization and transformation of modern Chinese cartographic history.

After the principle of setting taxes based on the original amount of Wanli was determined in the early Qing Dynasty, a large number of wasteland figures were formed through “removing wasteland and collecting reclaimed land”(Ti Huang Zheng Shu). Through the investigation of Shanxi Province in the early Qing Dynasty, it can be seen that the number of wasteland mainly refers to the excluded wasteland in the original land amount. In the process of wasteland classification and successive census, the numbers showed characteristics of delay, stratification and systematic missing. Under the influence of the policy of exemption, on the one hand, it included some uncultivated or wasteland difficult to cultivate formed in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, on the other hand, it did not include a large number of easily reclaimed wasteland formed in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. In the reclamation process in early Qing Dynasty, these wasteland number became an important basis for the rulers to judge the reclamation situation and the starting point of reclamation. Therefore, although the situation of reclamation in Shanxi was not good before Yongzheng’s era, the actual reclamation process of wasteland started earlier, was larger in scale and completed faster than that was reflected in the reclamation figures, and it’s different in terms of spatial process.

In the early Tang Dynasty, the seat of Lewen County (乐温县) was firstly set up at Linfeng, which located in the hills alongside the lower reaches of the Longxi River. Yong’an’s seat, on the other hand, was at Yangjiao Bao by the mouth of the river. The administrative center of Lewen County was relocated to the riverside street close to the abandoned Yong’an’s seat after the two counties merged in the late Kaiyuan period, and remained until the Jiaqing’s reign in Qing Dynasty. The spatial process reflects a functional transfer from inland to port. The misunderstandings regarding the relocation of the country seat, which was believed to have taken place in early Ming Dynasty, may be attributed to the loss of local memory caused by the tremendous geographic and demographic changes since late Southern Song Dynasty. It would be useful for the study of local toponym as well as the revitalization local culture to clarify the historical facts.

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。

《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。

民国时期,北洋政府及国民政府曾在全国范围组织测绘大比例尺地形图。对数千幅民国地图扫描归档、空间配准并与今天电子地图叠加实现古今对照,虽然繁重但意义重大。基于OpenCV与ArcPy方法库,发展一套针对民国地形图集的自动配准方法,保证精度的同时极大减少了人工,《汉珍数位地图集》配准的过程可资验证。最后,以《中国大陆五万分之一地图集成》为案例进行地图覆盖范围比较分析,以支撑其史料价值发挥与后续研究。

《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。

平河水是隋开皇年间在北部边疆胜州人工开挖的漕渠,隋唐时用以连通粮仓,转运边军军需补给。随着河曲地区军事防御格局调整与军需补给运输线变化,平河水的具体功能也存在阶段性差异。隋时黄河右岸设屯仓,并利用平河水转运屯仓中粮草至左岸诸镇戍。唐开元中,胜州平河水作为河曲地区军需补给运输线的重要一环,被用以将自河东陆运而来的粮草转运至右岸的中转粮仓。安史之乱后,因为补给运输线的调整,平河水被弃用,渐趋淤废。

明代后期淮河由独流入海改为分泄归江,因《孟子》中有“排淮注江”与水文情境暗合,被援引为泄淮注江的理论依据。清代前期,河臣以禹王河比附《孟子》,构建新的泄淮入江通道,引发士人对治水、经典与地理的思辨。清代中期,淮扬水患频发,孙星衍、焦循借地理考据,构建江、淮上游相通之说,表达泄淮入江、缓解地方水患的主张。清代后期,诸儒围绕焦循等人的观点展开地理辨析,否认江、淮上游相通,确认江、淮与运河一体的认知。明清《孟子》“排淮注江”研究与治水紧密关联,以重构江淮关系为中心的实践与探索为传统经学注入地理考辨与经世致用思维,使原本围绕经文的简单判读转变为对江、淮沟通路线与地理空间的考证与阐释,将“排淮注江”推向地理专题研究层面。

道路里程是考证地望和衡量交通运输成本的重要参数。清廷在驿传制度实践中遵循“按程立限”和“以里核销”准则,道路里程作用凸显,清会典、程限册等官方文献和水陆行程书、行程日记等私人著述对其多有记载。对清代西北地区道路里程细致考察,发现存在“大里”“小里”“官里”“民里”等多种形态,里程记载文本差异显著。道路里程文本差异的成因相当复杂,既有不同地貌条件下的地形因素,也有官府与民间的主体因素,还存在内地与边疆的区域因素。正确理解清代道路里程的实际内涵,对于深化历史交通地理和交通史研究意义重大。

2010年磁县出土《窦奉高墓志》,为东魏北齐邯郸县设治提供证据,证明《隋书·地理志》《元和郡县图志》《太平寰宇记》“邯郸县”“临洺县”条记载有漏讹。以东魏北齐邯郸县设治为起点,综合三志记载,参考《魏书》《北齐书》相关记述,东魏至隋初邯郸、陟乡、易阳、临洺各县废置情形须重新解释。

民国时期,日本制印的陕西省地形图现存9套,共计458幅。其中,3套翻印图和2套编绘图主要基于民国政府制陕西省的《十万分一图》和《五万分一图》复制或改绘而成。这些图包含了中、日两种形式的纪年。每幅《民国图缩制(陕西省十万分一图)》由2—4幅民国政府制《五万分一图》等比例缩制。与现存民国政府制及日本翻印的十万分之一地形图相比,这套图地形要素更丰富、精准。其余4套测绘图仅标注日本纪年,其地形要素源于日军航摄。厘清日制陕西省地形图的信息来源,可作为近代军事地形图的文献来源及资料特征的案例参考。

近千年来,太原城洪涝灾害变迁呈现出“三期三型”,即漫溢型、山洪型、内涝型的时空格局。城市工程建设是影响洪涝灾害时空突变的主导因素,气候与植被变迁也对灾害频次渐变有所影响。记录太原城洪涝灾害的历史文献具有空间代表性,从历史城市地理视角出发,模拟洪涝灾害空间发生过程,综合城市考古研究结论,探究中尺度、长时段古代城市洪涝灾害的规律及成因,可以为当代城市洪涝问题提供历史参考。