Birth of Geoscience
3 min readAlso known as territory study or locality study, here geoscience refers to Chinese ancient geography. China was one of the earliest countries to develop geography in the world. The Banpo (Halfway Slope) dwellers 6,000 years ago had already learned to locate their homes on embankments free from river flooding with their gates opening to the sunny southern side. In the inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells of Shang dynasty there are already records of consecutive rainy days during 20th to 29th daysof the third lunar month in 1217 B.C.
Then in Zhou dynasty, Classic of Poetry gave an account of dozens of climatic phenomena such as rainfall, snow, hail, cloud, fog, dew, frost, rainbow and lightning as well as those of landforms including mountain, mound, hill, cave, valley, range, plain, humid low-lying land, ridge, verdant wooden hill, riverbank, islet, river mouth and deep pool. The ancient people also learned a variety of newly formed terrains, for instance,”the mountain were landslided, the high riverbanks became gullies, and the deep valleys turned to hills.”From the Spring and Autumn & Warring States period to Western Han dynasty,a series of geographical works came out including Chinese earliest extant phonological works Lesser Annuary of Xia Dynasty, the earliest monograph on regional geography Tribute of Yu, the earliest monograph on comprehensive physical geography Diyuan chapter in Statesman Book of Master Guan, the earliest works on landscape Classic of Mountains and Rivers, the earliest economic geography Biographies of Usureres in Records of Grand Historian, the earliest monograph on foreign geography Treatise on Farghana Valley also in Records of Grand Historian, theearliest maps specific monograph The Maps in Statesman Book of Master Guan, the earliest maps The Graveyard Layout for the Prince of Zhongshan and Maps Unearthedin Fangmatan, the earliest actually area measuring map Topographic Map Unearthed in Mawangdui, and the earliest color military map Military Map Unearthed in Mawangdui. All these indicate that in the early ancient time Chinese people already put emphasis on observation and study of nature marking the birth of Chinese ancient geography.
The ancient geography encompassed history and achieved a prime development in historical development in Qing dynasty, represented by Essentials of Historical Geography by Gu Zuyu and Maps of Historical Development by Yang Shoujing. In addition, foreign geography and mapping also enjoyed great development, with brilliant accomplishments in the middle and late ancient times including compilation of Eminent Monk Fa Xian’s Biography, The Tang Monk’s Journey to the West, An llustrated Introduction to Feoreign Countries, and Records of Lands and Peoples Overseas. As of the middle ancient time, six cartographic rules and ancient-present place name reference notes were adopted, and Stone Map of Water Systems of Song Empire and Map of China and Barbarian Countries were made; Charts of Zheng He’s Naval Expeditions, and legend-compliant Enlarged Terrestrial Atlas by Luo Hongxian came into being. To sum up, China boasts the richest ancient literature of geography in the world, unmatchable for any other country.
However, History of Han Dynasty: Treatise on Geography cut off the ancient Chinese geographical tradition to observe and study nature. Later, despite the world renowned geographical masterpieces, such as Commentary on the Waterways Classic by Li Daoyuan of the middle ancient time and Xu Xiake’s Travelogue, natural study failed to become the mainstream for study of ancient Chinese geography in the centuries that followed and consequently the country saw little development in modern geography.
