---
title: "History of geography"
chunk: 4/11
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geography"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:59:47.409771+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

In China, the earliest known geographical Chinese writing dates back to the 5th century BC, during the beginning of the Warring States period (481 BC – 221 BC). This work was the Yu Gong ('Tribute of Yu') chapter of the Shu Jing or Book of Documents, which describes the traditional nine provinces of ancient China, their kinds of soil, their characteristic products and economic goods, their tributary goods, their trades and vocations, their state revenues and agricultural systems, and the various rivers and lakes listed and placed accordingly. The nine provinces at the time of this geographical work were relatively small in size compared to those of modern China with the book's descriptions pertaining to areas of the Yellow River, the lower valleys of the Yangtze and the plain between them as well as the Shandong peninsula and to the west the most northern parts of the Wei and Han Rivers along with the southern parts of modern-day Shanxi province.
In this ancient geographical treatise, which would greatly influence later Chinese geographers and cartographers, the Chinese used the mythological figure of Yu the Great to describe the known earth (of the Chinese). Apart from the appearance of Yu, however, the work was devoid of magic, fantasy, Chinese folklore, or legend. Although Chinese geographical writings in the time of Herodotus and Strabo were of lesser quality and contained less systematic approaches, this would change from the 3rd century onwards, as Chinese methods of documenting geography became more complex than those found in Europe, a state of affairs that would persist until the 13th century.
The earliest extant maps found in archeological sites of China date to the 4th century BC and were made in the ancient State of Qin. The earliest known reference to the application of a geometric grid and mathematically graduated scale to a map was contained in the writings of the cartographer Pei Xiu (224–271). From the 1st century AD onwards, official Chinese historical texts contained a geographical section, which was often an enormous compilation of changes in place-names and local administrative divisions controlled by the ruling dynasty, descriptions of mountain ranges, river systems, taxable products, etc. The ancient Chinese historian Ban Gu (32–92) most likely started the trend of the gazetteer in China, which became prominent in the Northern and Southern dynasties period and Sui dynasty. Local gazetteers would feature a wealth of geographic information, although its cartographic aspects were not as highly professional as the maps created by professional cartographers.
From the time of the 5th century BC Shu Jing forward, Chinese geographical writing provided more concrete information and less legendary element. This example can be seen in the 4th chapter of the Huainanzi (Book of the Master of Huainan), compiled under the editorship of Prince Liu An in 139 BC during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 202 AD). The chapter gave general descriptions of topography in a systematic fashion, given visual aids by the use of maps (di tu) due to the efforts of Liu An and his associate Zuo Wu. In Chang Chu's Hua Yang Guo Chi (Historical Geography of Sichuan) of 347, not only rivers, trade routes, and various tribes were described, but it also wrote of a 'Ba Jun Tu Jing' ('Map of Sichuan'), which had been made much earlier in 150. The Shui Jing (Waterways Classic) was written anonymously in the 3rd century during the Three Kingdoms era (attributed often to Guo Pu), and gave a description of some 137 rivers found throughout China. In the 6th century, the book was expanded to forty times its original size by the geographers Li Daoyuan, given the new title of Shui Jing Zhu (The Waterways Classic Commented).
In later periods of the Song dynasty (960–1279) and Ming dynasty (1368–1644), there were much more systematic and professional approaches to geographic literature. The Song dynasty poet, scholar, and government official Fan Chengda (1126–1193) wrote the geographical treatise known as the Gui Hai Yu Heng Chi. It focused primarily on the topography of the land, along with the agricultural, economic and commercial products of each region in China's southern provinces. The polymath Chinese scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) devoted a significant amount of his written work to geography, as well as a hypothesis of land formation (geomorphology) due to the evidence of marine fossils found far inland, along with bamboo fossils found underground in a region far from where bamboo was suitable to grow. The 14th-century Yuan dynasty geographer Na-xin wrote a treatise of archeological topography of all the regions north of the Yellow River, in his book He Shuo Fang Gu Ji. The Ming dynasty geographer Xu Xiake (1587–1641) traveled throughout the provinces of China (often on foot) to write his enormous geographical and topographical treatise, documenting various details of his travels, such as the locations of small gorges, or mineral beds such as mica schists. Xu's work was largely systematic, providing accurate details of measurement, and his work (translated later by Ding Wenjiang) read more like a 20th-century field surveyor than an early 17th-century scholar.
The Chinese were also concerned with documenting geographical information of foreign regions far outside of China. Although Chinese had been writing of civilizations of the Middle East, India, and Central Asia since the traveler Zhang Qian (2nd century BC), later Chinese would provide more concrete and valid information on the topography and geographical aspects of foreign regions. The Tang dynasty (618–907) Chinese diplomat Wang Xuance traveled to Magadha (modern northeastern India) during the 7th century. Afterwards he wrote the book Zhang Tian-zhu Guo Tu (Illustrated Accounts of Central India), which included a wealth of geographical information. Chinese geographers such as Jia Dan (730–805) wrote accurate descriptions of places far abroad. In his work written between 785 and 805, he described the sea route going into the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and that the medieval Iranians (whom he called the people of the Luo-He-Yi country, i.e. Persia) had erected 'ornamental pillars' in the sea that acted as lighthouse beacons for ships that might go astray. Confirming Jia's reports about lighthouses in the Persian Gulf, Arabic writers a century after Jia wrote of the same structures, writers such as al-Mas'udi and al-Muqaddasi. The later Song dynasty ambassador Xu Jing wrote his accounts of voyage and travel throughout Korea in his work of 1124, the Xuan-He Feng Shi Gao Li Tu Jing (Illustrated Record of an Embassy to Korea in the Xuan-He Reign Period). The geography of medieval Cambodia (the Khmer Empire) was documented in the book Zhen-La Feng Tu Ji of 1297, written by Zhou Daguan.