Chinese Geography - Highlights

Highlights

Warring States

• Seven Qin State maps dated to the 4th century BC are found in Gansu province in 1986
• Crown Prince Dan of Yan and Jing Ke's assassination plot against Qin Shi Huang in 227 BC, first reference to a map drawn on silk.

Han

• Mawangdui archeological site reveals three maps drawn on silk, dated to the 2nd century BC, found in 1973
• Book of Han
• Rites of Zhou
• Liu An (2nd century BC), Huainanzi
• Yuejue Shu, the first gazetteer in China, written in 52 CE.

Three Kingdoms

• Pei Xiu (3rd century), the "father of Chinese cartography" produced a map of China with plotted grid lines and a graduated scale.

Tang

• Bianji (7th century), Great Tang Records on the Western Regions
• Jia Dan (8th century)
• Duan Chengshi (9th century)

Song

• Su Song (11th century)
• Shen Kuo (11th century)
• Fan Chengda (12th century)

Yuan

• Zhou Daguan (13th century)
• Wang Dayuan (14th century)
• Yu Qin (14th century)

Ming

• Zheng He (15th century)
• Xu Xiake (17th century)
• Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi (17th century)
• Giulio Aleni (1623)
• Martino Martini (1655)