Historical Atlas of China (8 Volumes)

Author: Tan Qixiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features: The "Historical Atlas of China" (hereinafter referred to as "The Atlas") is divided into 8 volumes by historical periods:
Volume 1: Primitive Society, Xia, Shang, Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn, Warring States Periods;
Volume 2: Qin, Western Han, Eastern Han Periods;
Volume 3: Three Kingdoms, Western Jin Periods;
Volume 4: Eastern Jin and Sixteen Kingdoms, Northern and Southern Dynasties Periods;
Volume 5: Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Periods;
Volume 6: Song, Liao, Jin Periods;
Volume 7: Yuan, Ming Periods;
Volume 8: Qing Period. It is divided into 20 map groups by chronological order, with a total of 304 maps (excluding illustrations that do not occupy separate pages) and 549 pages. The content of the maps includes: the distribution of known primitive society sites and important sites of other periods, the territorial boundaries, administrative divisions, or activity ranges of the governments established by various ethnic groups in Chinese history, ethnic distribution, all recorded place names before the Qin Dynasty, all county-level and above place names starting from the Qin Dynasty, boundaries of first and second-level administrative divisions, verifiable Great Wall sections, passes, fortresses, passes, tombs, tents, major rivers, lakes, mountain ranges, coastlines, and islands, with a total of over 70,000 place names collected. Each volume includes Chinese and English prefaces and place name indexes.
After its publication, the book received attention and praise both domestically and internationally. Its theoretical innovations are primarily reflected in the following aspects:
1. China has been a multi-ethnic country since ancient times, with vast unified empires emerging over two thousand years ago. However, due to feudal orthodox ideology, Han chauvinism, and insufficient records and research on the history of minority ethnic groups, previous historical atlases only depicted the Central Plains dynasties or Han governments, obscuring the historical status and role of minority ethnic groups. "The Atlas" aims to fully reflect the historical facts that dozens of ethnic groups jointly established the great motherland, determining the Qing Dynasty's territory before the 1840s as the basic scope of historical China. All governments established by ethnic groups within this scope, whether Han or other ethnicities, are displayed. Some frontier minority governments, such as those of the Turks and Tibetans, are also selected based on their peak territorial extents. "The Atlas" opposes the fallacy of recognizing only Han governments or Central Plains dynasties while also rejecting the view that minority or frontier governments were mere appendages of the Central Plains dynasties. This approach promotes a correct understanding of history, strengthens patriotism, ethnic equality, and unity.
2. Most previous historical atlases relied on literary records as the basis for plotting locations, but historical records are vast, and compilers' limited resources led to many errors and omissions. When the records themselves were inaccurate, differences on maps became even harder to avoid. "The Atlas" extensively incorporates research findings from archaeology, geography, and related disciplines since the mid-1980s to verify and correct literary records. The compilation of frontier maps also incorporates minority ethnic literature and references foreign research, making the content more precise and complete. Even for points and lines determined primarily by records, thorough research has been conducted to correct previous errors as much as possible.
3. Historically, Chinese maps generally depicted one dynasty per full map, with very brief content and inaccurate place name locations. Yang Shoujing's "Maps of Dynasties and Regions" was the first to divide the country into dozens of maps. However, using the same scale for all maps, while the development levels and records of different regions varied greatly, often resulted in overly dense place names in the Central Plains, making them hard to read, while frontier areas appeared too sparse. Additionally, this uniform division often placed parts of the same government across different maps, making reference inconvenient. "The Atlas," building on the experience of Yang's maps, divides each historical period into large administrative regions (or surveillance regions, geographical regions) and uses different scales based on content density, completely solving the problem. By using high-precision maps as a base, historical and modern comparisons are more accurate, making the atlas scientifically rigorous and easy to use.
4. Historical territorial, administrative, and place name changes were significant, with frequent adjustments within the same government period. However, official histories' "Geography Records" often lacked attention to chronological limits, confusing the establishment of different dynasties across decades or even centuries. "The Atlas," whether in overall maps or divided maps, sets standard years (with shorter periods for those that cannot be precisely determined) and displays the territorial extents and administrative divisions of the same era. For longer dynasties, multiple overall maps are used to show different historical situations.
5. The compilers of "The Atlas" conducted a series of thematic studies on the treatment of natural elements like rivers, lakes, and coastlines, which have changed significantly over history, absorbing new research findings and correcting many traditional errors. For example, the evolution of the Yunmeng Lake, Dongting Lake, Xiangyang Lake, Yellow River, Yangtze River, and Hai River has been thoroughly researched and updated with new conclusions. This contributes positively to understanding the laws of natural environmental changes and long-term planning for national land management. "The Atlas" is undoubtedly a major achievement in the integration of natural and social sciences, not only summarizing the scientific progress of historical geography research and historical mapmaking but also laying the foundation for future specialized and comprehensive maps reflecting the geographical elements and dynamic changes of historical periods.