Nine Provinces (China)

The term Nine Provinces or "nine regions" (Chinese: 九州; pinyin: Jiǔ Zhōu) is used in ancient Chinese histories to refer to territorial divisions or islands during the Xia and Shang dynasties, and has now come to symbolically represent China. "Province" is the word used to translate zhou (州) – since before the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), it was the largest Chinese territorial division. Although the current definition of the Nine Provinces can be dated to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, it was not until the Eastern Han dynasty that the Nine Provinces were treated as actual administrative regions.

The Rongcheng Shi bamboo slips from the Chu state has the earliest interpretation of the Nine Provinces, but these early descriptions differ widely from the currently recognized Nine Provinces. The Nine Provinces, according to the Rongcheng Shi, are Tu (涂), Jia (夾), Zhang (竞), Ju (莒), Ou (藕), Jing (荊), Yang (陽), Xu (敘), and Cuo (虘).

The most prevalent account of the Nine Provinces comes from the Yu Gong or Tribute of Yu section of the Book of Xia (夏書), collected in the Book of Documents. It was therein recorded that Yu the Great divided the world into the nine provinces of Ji (冀), Yan (兗), Qing (青), Xu (徐), Yang (揚), Jing (荊), Yu (豫), Liang (梁), and Yong (雍). The geography section (釋地) of the ancient Erya encyclopedia also cites nine provinces, but with You and Ying (營) listed instead of Qing and Liang. In the "Clan Responsibilities" (職方氏) section of Rituals of Zhou, the provinces include You and Bing but not Xu and Liang. The Lüshi Chunqiu "Initial Survey" (有始覽) section mentions You but not Liang.

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