Historical Atlas of China (Volumes 1-8)

Author: Tan Qixiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1996-06-01
Features:
Awards: Shanghai Municipal Higher Education Philosophy and Social Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award, First Prize (1984); Shanghai Philosophy and Social Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award (1979-1985), First Prize (1986); National Higher Education First Humanities and Social Sciences Research Outstanding Achievement Award, First Prize (1995); Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award, Special Prize.
The Historical Atlas of China (Volumes 1-8) has received significant attention and praise both domestically and internationally. Its theoretical innovations are primarily reflected in the following aspects:
1. China has been a multi-ethnic nation since ancient times, with vast unified empires emerging over two millennia. However, due to feudal orthodox concepts and Han-centric nationalism, as well as insufficient records and research on the histories of minority ethnic groups, previous historical atlases primarily depicted the Central Plains dynasties or Han-ruled governments, obscuring the historical roles and contributions of minority ethnic groups. The Atlas aims to fully reflect the historical facts that dozens of ethnic groups jointly established the great motherland. It adopts the Qing Dynasty’s territory before the 1840s of the imperialist invasion as the basic scope of historical China. All regimes established within this scope, whether Han or other ethnic groups, are displayed. Some frontier minority regimes, such as those of the Turks and Tibetans, are also depicted in their periods of greatest territorial expansion. The Atlas opposes the fallacy of recognizing only Han regimes or Central Plains dynasties while dismissing minority and frontier regimes as mere appendages of the Central Plains. This approach fosters a correct understanding of history, promotes patriotism, ethnic equality, and unity.
2. Most previous historical atlases relied on textual records for plotting locations, but historical records are vast, and compilers’ limited resources often led to errors and omissions. When textual records themselves were inaccurate, discrepancies on maps became even harder to avoid. The Atlas incorporates archaeological, geographical, and related disciplines’ research findings from the mid-1980s to verify and correct textual records. The compilation of frontier maps also incorporates minority ethnic textual records and references foreign research, resulting in more precise and comprehensive content. Even for points and lines determined primarily by textual records, careful research has been conducted to correct previous errors.
3. Historically, China’s maps were often organized by dynasty, with extremely brief content and inaccurate place names. Yang Shoujing’s Historical Maps of China was the first to divide the country into dozens of maps. However, using the same scale for all maps led to overly dense names in the Central Plains and excessive blank spaces in frontier regions. Additionally, this uniform division often split a single regime across multiple maps, making reference inconvenient. The Atlas, building on Yang’s experience, divides maps by historical administrative regions (or surveillance districts/geo-regions) and adjusts scales based on content density, completely solving these issues. The use of high-precision base maps ensures more accurate comparisons between ancient and modern geography, enhancing scientific rigor and ease of use.
4. Historical territorial, administrative, and place name changes were frequent, often varying within the same regime. Most official histories’ Geography Records lacked strict chronological limits, frequently confusing administrative changes across different years of the same dynasty, sometimes spanning decades or even centuries. The Atlas, whether in overview or detailed maps, establishes standard reference years (with shorter periods for uncertain cases) to depict the territorial extent and administrative divisions of regimes from the same era. For longer-lasting dynasties, multiple overview maps are used to show changes over time.
5. The compilers of the Atlas conducted specialized research on natural elements like rivers, lakes, and coastlines, which have historically changed significantly. They incorporated new research findings to correct traditional errors, such as the evolution of Yunmeng Lake, Dongting Lake, Xiangyang Lake, the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, and the Hai River. This contributes positively to understanding environmental change patterns and long-term national land management planning.
The Historical Atlas of China (Volumes 1-8) is undoubtedly a major achievement in the integration of natural and social sciences. It not only summarizes past research in historical geography and mapmaking but also lays the foundation for future specialized and comprehensive maps reflecting historical geographical elements and their dynamic changes.
The Historical Atlas of China (Volumes 1-8) is divided into eight volumes based on historical periods:
Volume 1: Primitive Society, Xia, Shang, Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn, Warring States Period
Volume 2: Qin, Western Han, Eastern Han Period
Volume 3: Three Kingdoms, Western Jin Period
Volume 4: Eastern Jin and Sixteen Kingdoms, Northern and Southern Dynasties Period
Volume 5: Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period
Volume 6: Song, Liao, Jin Period
Volume 7: Yuan, Ming Period
Volume 8: Qing Period
Divided into 20 map groups chronologically, the Atlas contains 304 maps (excluding supplementary illustrations) and spans 549 pages. The maps include: the distribution of known primitive society sites and important sites from other periods, the territorial extent, administrative divisions, or activity ranges of regimes established by various ethnic groups in Chinese history, all recorded place names before the Qin Dynasty, all county-level and above place names since the Qin Dynasty, boundaries of first- and second-level administrative regions, verifiable Great Wall sections, passes, fortresses, mountain passes, tombs, and encampments, major rivers, lakes, mountains, coastlines, and islands, with over 70,000 place names recorded. Each volume includes bilingual (Chinese and English) prefaces and place name indexes.