Chinese geography

The study of geography in China begins in the Warring States period (5th century BC). It expands its scope beyond the Chinese homeland with the growth of the Chinese Empire under the Han dynasty. It enters its golden age with the invention of the compass in the 11th century (Song dynasty) and peaks with 15th century (Ming dynasty) Chinese exploration of the Pacific under admiral Zheng He during the treasure voyages.

Maps showing areas beyond China survive from the Song dynasty (960-1279). A map carved in stone in AD 1137 shows 500 settlements and a dozen rivers in China, and includes large parts of Korea and Vietnam. On the reverse, the Yu Ji Tu (see picture), a copy of a more ancient map, uses the grid system developed in China a millennium earlier.

The expansion of Chinese geographical enterprise to a world scale originates from a historical setting of the Mongol Empire, which connected the western Islamic world with the Chinese sphere, enabling both trade and the exchange of information.

After the founding of the Yuan dynasty in 1271, Kublai Khan ordered the compilation of a geography monograph named Dayuan Dayitong Zhi (大元大一統志) (extant manuscripts lack maps) in 1285. In 1286, Persian astronomer Jamāl al-Dīn made Kublai Khan (who had brought him east to undertake co-operative research with Chinese scholars in the 1260s) a proposal for merging several maps of the empire into a single world map, and it resulted in the Tianxia Dili Zongtu (天下地理總圖). It was supposedly a world map but is lost today. He also ordered to obtain a book called Rāh-nāmah (road book) from Muslim sailors. An extant map attached to the Jingshi Dadian (經世大典; 1329–1333) proves Mongols' accurate knowledge on Inner Asia that was obtained from Muslims. Influence by these official projects, Taoist monk Zhu Siben (朱思本) compiled a geography monograph of China named Jiuyu Zhi (九域志) in 1297. Based on this earlier work, he created a now lost map of China named Yuditu (與地圖) in 1311-1320.

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Wikipedia