However, the change of geographical environment caused by human activities is a gradual evolution process, which only becomes increasingly obvious and important after the emergence of primitive agriculture. As far as we know, the origin of primitive agriculture has been nearly 10 thousand years. Ten thousand years ago, it was the beginning of the Quaternary Holocene in geological history, and it entered the Neolithic Age from the Paleolithic Age in archaeology.
Prior to this, the changes of natural environment generally belonged to the research scope of paleogeography; After that, the change of natural environment generally belongs to the research scope of historical geography. In fact, paleogeography and historical geography permeate each other in specific research work. For a long time in the past, the study of historical geography was mainly limited to the historical period with written records.
The research content of historical geography has long been limited to the study of historical human geography. Since the 1950s, Clark and others in the United States have particularly emphasized the importance of historical and physical geography research. At present, most scholars believe that the study of historical geography mainly includes the following four aspects besides theoretical and methodological discussion: historical natural geography, historical human geography, regional historical geography and historical map.
Historical physical geography is a subject that studies the changes and laws of natural geographical environment in historical periods. The changes of natural geographical environment in historical period have already attracted people's attention, but after 1930s, a series of works by Darby laid the foundation of historical natural geography. China has done a lot of research since 1950s, and The Physical Geography and Historical Physical Geography of China is a preliminary summary of this period. Like modern physical geography, historical physical geography has various branches and fields. At present, there are more and more studies on historical climate, historical plant geography, historical landforms and historical hydrogeology.
Historical human geography is a subject that studies the changes and laws of human geographical environment in historical periods. Man is the leader in transforming nature and the creator of various human and geographical phenomena and environments. Rural areas, cities, rural areas, mining areas, roads, imports and other places of activity are the products of long-term human activities. At the same time, different cultures of different regions and nationalities have been created, and different productive forces and relations of production have been formed. Therefore, historical human geography, like modern human geography, has many branches, but the research degree is far less than modern human geography. Among them, historical population geography, urban historical geography and historical economic geography are studied more.
With the in-depth study of historical natural geography and historical human geography, regional historical geography has also been further developed. Representative works include several monographs on British historical geography by Darby, Historical Geography of America by Brown and Historical Geography of the Soviet Union by Drovazhev. China has Physical Geography of China, Historical Physical Geography of China and Historical Geography of China, which are published by Wang Hui, Taiwan Province Province.
Since Pei Xiu of China drew the Map of Gong Yu in the 3rd century A.D., the drawing of historical maps has a history of 1700 years. So far, many countries have published large-scale national historical atlases. For example, the Canadian Historical Atlas edited by Harris published by 1987 is very distinctive. However, the research on the theory and mapping content of historical maps needs to be deepened.
Historical geography is differentiated from the development of modern geography, and its development has greatly enriched the content of modern geography. The task of historical geography is not only to "restore" the geographical environment of the past as much as possible, but also to reveal the laws and characteristics of the development and evolution of geographical environment. Therefore, the study of historical geography not only contributes to the progress and theoretical development of geographical science, but also affects the development of historical science.
Historical geography is of great significance in economic and cultural construction. For example, in the investigation of modern desert history and geography, it reveals that some grasslands in the pre-Han period in northwest China later became deserts and the specific process of this evolution. This not only deepens the understanding of the present situation of geographical environment in this area, but also contributes to the work of combating desertification and transforming sand areas.
For another example, the study of a city is only satisfied with the investigation of the present situation and its current geographical factors, and it is difficult to understand the origin and development law of a city. Only through the study of historical geography can we "restore" various natural and human factors that have changed or disappeared, understand the whole process of the origin and development of this market, reveal the law of its development, and thus provide the necessary scientific basis for its future planning and construction.
Historical geography is a young discipline, and its further development faces two main problems: first, how to strengthen theoretical research to promote the further development of this discipline; The second is how to actively introduce new science and technology into research methods.
In recent years, radiocarbon determination, sporopollen analysis, tree rings and other methods have been applied to the study of historical geography, but the application of measurement methods and aerial thermal infrared and remote sensing technology has yet to be introduced. Their introduction will certainly help to open up new research fields.
The History, Present Situation and Development Trend of Historical Geography in China
Historical geography is a science that studies the phenomena of natural and human geography and the law of the development and evolution of the relationship between man and land in historical periods. Historical geography in the modern sense is a new discipline with obvious margins, which was born at the intersection of history and geography. In China, the study of historical geography has a long historical tradition. After more than 2,000 years' development, the historical geography of China has become a prominent contemporary school, and it is showing a vigorous development momentum.
First, the formation and development of the traditional historical geography of China with evolutionary geography as the main body.
Historical geography of China is an ancient and young discipline. It is said to be ancient, mainly because its predecessor, evolutionary geography, can be traced back to at least the Han Dynasty. It is young mainly because the historical geography of China in the modern sense was not established until the early 1950s of this century. Looking at the academic development history of historical geography in China, it is not difficult to see that the development of this discipline has obviously gone through three main stages: traditional historical geography in China, modern historical geography in China, which was gradually strengthened by "geography", and modern historical geography in China, which studied the changes of geographical environment in historical periods.
China's historical geography developed from evolutionary geography, which is a recognized conclusion in academic circles. The first mature and excellent work on evolutionary geography in history is The History of Han Geography written by Ban Gu in the Eastern Han Dynasty, so most scholars regard Ban Gu as the originator of evolutionary geography at present. However, it should be pointed out that although China's research on historical geography really focused on evolutionary geography for a long time, before Ban Gu, the historical geography of China, which was in its infancy, was not limited to evolutionary geography. As far as Ban Gu himself is concerned, his understanding of evolutionary geography was obviously influenced by previous geographical works such as Shangshu Gong Yu, Li Zhouzhi Fang and Historical Records Hequshu. )。 In this way, if we trace the origin of China's historical geography, we must start with the works such as Shangshu Gong Yu.
Gong Yu is an article in Shangshu. There are four opinions about the writing time of Gong Yu in recent years: (1) Xin Shuzhi's On the Western Zhou Dynasty (Note: Xin Shuzhi's Speculation on the Writing Time of Gong Yu [J], Journal of Northwest Agricultural College No.3, 1957). Wang Guowei also believes that Gong Yu was written by people in the early Zhou Dynasty in New Evidence of Ancient History. ); (2) Wang's Confucius in the Spring and Autumn Period (Noe: Wang): The Times of Re-evaluation from Comparative Studies [J], Journal of Northwest University, No.4, 1957. ); (3) Gu Jiegang's "On the Mid-Warring States Period" (Note: See Hou Renzhi, editor-in-chief: "Selected readings of China's ancient geographical masterpieces (full text notes)" [M], Science Press, 1959. ); (4) On the Late Warring States Period to the Early Han Dynasty in Tojiro, Japan (Noe: [Japan] Tojiro: A Study on the Emergence Time of Gong Yu [M], translated by Jiang Xia 'an: A Study of Pre-Qin Classics, The Commercial Press, 193 1 year. )。 At present, the theory of Warring States is widely adopted in the field of historical geography, but there are still different views on its author. Mr. Gu Jiegang thinks that "the author is from the northwest" and speculates that "it may be from the Qin Dynasty", while Mr. Shi Nianhai is writing On the Times (note: Two Sets of Rivers and Mountains, Sanlian Bookstore, 65433). ), according to the titles of "South River" and "West River", the author is determined to be wei ren (Note: For a comprehensive discussion of the times and the author, see Jin: An Introduction to Historical and Geographical Documents of China, pp. 29-30, Shaanxi People's Publishing House,1987; Liu Qi @ ①: Author of Yu Gong, edited by Tan Qixiang: Biography of China Geography, Volume I, Shandong Education Press, 1990. )。
Gong Yu's full text is only 1 189 words. Although small, it is the most scientific geographical work in the pre-Qin period. "Kyushu" describes the territory, mountains, rivers and tributes of Hebei, Yanzhou, Qinghai, Xu, Yang, Jing, Yu, Liang and Yong, "Guiding Mountains" and "Guiding Water" describe the general trend of the distribution of mountains and rivers in China, and "Five Clothes" puts forward one. From now on, the content of Gong Yu has covered many aspects of natural geography and human geography, and it can be called the first comprehensive geographical work in China. To this end, Amin Ai Nanying said in the preface to Notes on Gong Yu: "Gong Yu is the ancestor of ancient and modern geography." Zhenyu Li, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, also said in the preface to Yu Gong's Cone Finger for Hu Wei: "There have been hundreds of geography books since Yu controlled the water for more than 4,000 years, and none of them is beyond the scope." It can be seen that Gong Yu's influence on the ancient geography of China is enormous. What needs special emphasis is that although Gong Yu is a masterpiece handed down from generation to generation, its content is basically based on the historical facts of Xia Dynasty. Writing Xia Dynasty with Warring States people shows that Gong Yu should be a historical and geographical work. However, most geographical works in the embryonic period of geography are inseparable from the previous geography, and Yugong is no exception.
About the same time, Shan Hai Jing and Mu Zhuan are also important historical and geographical works. The Classic of Mountains and Seas consists of Mountain Scenery (also known as Mountain Scenery of Five Zangs), Sea Classic and Huang Da Classic. There are 30,825 words in the book, including 2 1265 words of mountain scenery, accounting for nearly 70% of the book's length. Mountain Classic contains a lot of information about mountain names, miles, plants, animals, water systems and minerals, which is of great value to the study of historical geography (Note: Yu Xixian: A Brief History of Ancient Geography of China [M], page 47-5 1, Hebei Science and Technology Press, 1990. )。 Mu Zhuan is the first biography of this kind in China. This edition of Mu Zhuan consists of six volumes. The first five volumes record the experience of traveling to the West, and the sixth volume records the death of Shengji. Is "Recording the Geography of Mountains and Rivers in China, True and Vivid" (Note: Shi: Mu Biography Author [J], edited and published by Tan Qixiang: Biography of China Geographer, Volume I, Shandong Education Press, 1990. ), but also has a high geographical value. However, in comparison, Shan Hai Jing and Mu Zhuan are different from the original school of seeking truth and belong to the fantasy school. Myths and legends are accompanied by rich geographical information, which weakens their scientific nature to some extent, and their academic value cannot be compared with Yugong.
China's traditional historical geography didn't mature until the Han Dynasty. Its landmark works are Hequ Shu and Biography of Huo Zhi in Sima Qian's Historical Records and Geography in Ban Gu's Han Shu. Biography of Historical Records of Rivers and Channels is a special record of the changes of river water conservancy in past dynasties, and it is also a combination of historical hydrogeology and historical economic geography. Biography of Huo Zhi is not only "the establishment of regional economic geography of China historical geography" (Note: Shi Nianhai: the establishment of regional economic geography of China historical geography [J], the third series of China historical geography theory series 1996. ), but also an important material for the study of historical custom geography and historical business geography (Noe: Wu Hong Qi: "Sima Qian's geographical thought and its historical position" [J], "China Historical Geography Theory Series" 1998, the second series. )。 The History of Geography of Han Dynasty brought the purpose of geography into the official history for the first time, which made great contributions to promoting the development of geography. Although this geographical work mainly describes the geography of the Western Han Dynasty, it also discusses the geography of the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and also covers the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period, the Qin Dynasty and the Wang Mang Period. "At that time, it was a relatively complete evolutionary geography from Xia Dynasty to Wang Mang, but only the Western Han Dynasty was emphasized in the middle" (Noe: Shi Nianhai: Bangu's Creative Contribution to Historical Geography [J], China Historical Geography Theory Series No.3 1989. )。 Historical Records of Hequ, Historical Records of Huo Zhi and Historical Records of Hanshu are all based on historical facts and have no fictional elements. They distinguish contemporary geography from previous geography for the first time, and clearly describe the changes and evolution of historical geography. Therefore, they are not only mature geographical works, but also can be regarded as models of traditional historical geography in China.
In the past, scholars compared evolutionary geography with China's traditional historical geography, so they decided that Ban Gu was the originator of China's traditional historical geography. In fact, if measured from the perspective of modern historical geography, Ban Gu's Hanshu Geography adopts the genre of administrative geography, and its content is quite limited. Although the evolution of place names can be seen at a glance, it does not examine the relationship between many historical and geographical phenomena. Sima Qian's works on historical geography are different, and all of them adopt the form of thematic research, which can fully reflect the comprehensive, regional and spatio-temporal development characteristics of geographical things, and the high academic value should be above Ban Gu's Geography of Hanshu.
After the Han Dynasty, most geographers in past dynasties took Ban Gu as the authentic one, abandoned Sima Qian's special research methods and only talked about the evolution and rarity of place names. Therefore, evolutionary geography has become the mainstream of traditional historical geography in China. In the Twenty-Five History, following the History of Han Geography, there are sixteen kinds of official history juxtaposed with geography (among them, it was renamed as county, geography, county and vocational examination). They are County Records of Continued Han Dynasty, Geography of Jin Dynasty, County Records of Song Dynasty, County Records of Nanqi Dynasty, Topography of Wei and Jin Dynasties, Geography of Sui Shu, Geography of Old Tang Dynasty, Geography of New Tang Dynasty and Geography of Old Five Dynasties. These sixteen geographical records are not only written with the unique characteristics of their respective times, but also have similar basic contents and writing styles, and their academic quality is far from comparable to the latter. In addition to the official geographical records, influenced by the geographical records of Hanshu, most local records are compiled by the government or the people, such as Lezi's Jiuzhou Records, Kan Yī n @ ②' s Thirteen Counties Records, Huang Gong's Fourteen Counties Records, Tang Dynasty's Guangdong and Guangxi Records, and Jia Dan's Counties Records. Only a few paleogeographers, such as Li Daoyuan's Notes on Shui Jing in the Northern Wei Dynasty, Yang Guang's Miscellaneous Notes in the Ming Dynasty, Xu Xiake's Travels by Xu Hongzu, and Gu's Records of Diseases in the World in the Early Qing Dynasty, inherited Sima Qian's geographical thoughts and made some explorations on thematic geographical issues, but their influence was not enough to compete with official geography and official history.
It should be admitted that Sima Qian's Historical Records of Hequ, Biography of Historical Records of Huo Zhi and Bangu's Historical Records of Hanshu all exist as part of the official history, but Sima Qian's special research on historical geography is closer to the requirements of modern historical geography, while Bangu's Historical Records of Hanshu focuses on the evolution of place names and can only play a supporting role in history. Because the geographical works of later generations are mostly based on the writing style of Hanshu Geography, although there are new works, they do not belong to the category of evolutionary geography. This is also the main reason why China's traditional historical geography has long been a vassal of history.
Second, the Geographical Society of China, the Gong Yu Society and the Modern Historical Geography of China.
The first half of this century is the development period of modern historical geography in China, which can be divided into two stages with 1934 as the dividing line.
The establishment of "Chinese Geographical Society" from 65438 to 0909 can be regarded as the beginning of modern geography and historical geography in China. Zhang Faqi, a famous geographer, founded the "China Geoscience Society" and decided to establish the Journal of Geosciences at the beginning of its establishment. Journal of Geosciences 19 10 was published in February, and 1937 was closed on the eve of the Anti-Japanese War. In 28 years, * * * published 18 1 and published more than 600 papers, including many articles on historical geography. Such as the changes in Hutuo, Zhangzhou and Fujian, the past and future of Bohai Sea, water conservancy in China in recent 50 years, world climate change, historical and geographical comments, etc. (Note: Zhang's contribution to the development of geography in China [J], the first issue of Historical Geography, Shanghai people. )。 It is worth noting that the term "historical geography" was formally put forward shortly after the establishment of the Chinese Geographical Society. In June 19 13 1, Professor of Historical Geography by Shi Lishou was published in China Education, Volume 2,No. 1. 1June, 923, 65438+1October, Zhang Qiyun's Historical Geography put forward the name of this subject, which was published in Journal of Historical Geography, Volume 2, Issue 2. Subsequently, 1933 published Bai and Wan Luo's original works and Zhang's translation of Historical Geography, and 65438+ 10 published Geoscience Quarterly (Note: Zhang Bu Day: Introduction to Historical Geography [M], 9 1 ~ 95 pages, Henan University Press, )。 Generally speaking, although many papers on historical geography were published during this period, the term "historical geography" was produced, but most of these papers were completed by geographers, and there were no scholars specializing in historical geography. At that time, the papers on historical geography were still dominated by evolutionary geography, and many monographs were still titled "Evolutionary Geography", such as Zhang's History of Geographical Evolution in China, Liu's Introduction to Evolutionary Geography in China (The Commercial Press, 193 1) and Ge Suicheng's Textual Research on the Evolution of China's Borders (Zhonghua Book Company,/kloc-0)
1934 In February, the famous historian Gu Jiegang and the historical geographer Tan Qixiang jointly founded an academic group specializing in evolutionary geography-the Gong Yu Society, which marked that the modern historical geography of China entered a higher stage.
The second month after the establishment of the Society (1 March), the Society began to edit and publish semi-monthly, with Mr. Gu and Mr. Tan Er as the chief editors. At that time, the reason why "Gong Yu" was used as the name of the society and publication was explained by the person in charge of the society as follows: "Gong Yu is the first article in the history of geographical evolution in China, which expresses the significance of our work most simply and clearly, so we use this topic to call our society and this publication." (Note: Gong Yu is a bimonthly magazine with one volume per issue. The preliminary work plan put forward by the Society is: (1) sorting out a history of geographical evolution in China. (2) Draw several detailed, accurate and useful geographical evolution maps. (3) Compile an accurate and detailed dictionary of historical place names. (4) Organize the geographical records of each generation in detail. (5) Collect various historical materials related to geography, such as economic history and immigration history, and conduct various special studies. In addition, some problems related to physical geography that can't be solved by themselves are put forward for scientists to answer (note: Gong Yu is a bimonthly introduction). )。 Although the Gong Yu Institution focuses on the study of geographical evolution, it also emphasizes the importance of current geographical research. In the preface of the bimonthly Gong Yu, the editor declared: "Many people say that this publication is devoted to the study of paleogeography, which is true, because it focuses on the evolution of geography and is of course biased towards ancient times, but we must solemnly declare that we have not forgotten modern times. In the future, we will have financial resources, manpower and material resources, and we should also pay attention to the economic geography of modern China. " Later, he said: "The purpose of this organization is to advocate the study of evolutionary geography and human geography." (Note: Gong Yu Biweekly Volume 2 No.4 Social Notice (3). ) even put forward: "This Council aims to study geography." (Note: Gong Yu is a bimonthly magazine, with four volumes and ten issues, and The Gong Yu Institution raises money. ) The change of this concept can also be proved by the translation of The Evolution of Geography in China in the bimonthly of Gong Yu and the translation of Historical Geography in China in the third volume. Gong Yu was first published in March 1934, and from July 7th Incident 1937, * * * published 7 volumes and 82 issues, and published more than 700 articles, most of which were academic papers on historical geography and modern geography. "Although, as far as the overall content is concerned, it also includes a large number of historical works and modern geographical materials, which is not consistent with the new translation of the publication" Historical Geography of China ",it is, after all, a place where history and geography merge, which has played a catalytic role in the two disciplines moving from mixing to integration and gradually strengthening' geography' to form a new discipline." (Note: Yao Zhaokui: A Study of Social Historical Geography of Gong Yu, the first issue of Historical Geography. More importantly, the Gong Yu Institution was established only three years ago, but it has trained a large number of talents. The three founders of modern historical geography in China-Tan Qixiang, Hou Renzhi and Shi Nianhai-are all members of the Gong Yu Institution. Because of this, some people say that Mr. Gu Jiegang and the Gong Yu Society he founded "contributed to the growth and development of historical geography in the old China period" (Note: Yao Zhaokui: A Study of Social Historical Geography of Gong Yu, the first issue of Historical Geography. )
Thirdly, the research status and development trend of modern historical geography in China.
Although as early as 19 13, China geologists put forward the subject name of "historical geography", Gong Yu also adopted the foreign translation of "historical geography of China", which was founded in 1934. However, under the influence of traditional academic thoughts, the study of historical geography in the first half of this century was still dominated by evolutionary geography, even to 13 years. In 1950, Hou Renzhi, a professor from Peking University who studied in Britain, published a paper entitled "Discussion on the Course of Evolutionary Geography in China" in theNo.1issue of New Construction, which took the lead in deeply discussing the basic theory of historical geography in China. In The Course of Evolutionary Geography in China and Some Issues of Historical Geography published later (Note: Wen Wei Po,19610+02+14). ) and On Historical Geography (Note: Journal of Peking University (Natural Science Edition)No. 1962,No. 1. ) In all the articles, Professor Hou Renzhi first clarified the essential difference between historical geography and evolutionary geography, pointing out that "historical geography is an integral part of modern geography, and its main research object is the change of geographical environment in human historical period, which is mainly caused by human activities and influences. The main task of historical geography is not only to' restore' the past geographical environment, but also to find the law of its development and evolution and clarify the formation and characteristics of the current geographical environment. " "Evolutionary geography is only a preliminary study of historical geography, not the ultimate goal. There are also a number of special studies on historical geography, which are still going smoothly without the knowledge of evolutionary geography. " (Note: On historical geography. Professor Hou Renzhi's series of papers systematically expounded the subject attributes, research objects, tasks, methods and practical significance of historical geography in China. Although there were still some different views in academic circles at that time, his views were accepted by most scholars. This leap in understanding has enabled China's historical geography to enter a modern development stage.
While the theory of historical geography in modern China gradually matured, the scientific research institutions and organizations of historical geography were born. 1956, the Institute of Geography of China Academy of Sciences set up the Historical Geography Group (later renamed the Historical Geography Research Office), and then Shanghai Fudan University, Peking University, Shaanxi Normal University, China Institute of History of the Academy of Social Sciences, Hangzhou University, Wuhan University, South China Normal University, Southwest Normal University and other units also set up historical geography research institutes, research centers or research offices. 1979, the Historical Geography Professional Committee of the Chinese Geographical Society was announced, and the Xi 'an Historical Geography Society was also established in 1986. In terms of discipline construction, many universities and research institutes have begun to recruit master students majoring in historical geography, among which Fudan University, Peking University, Shaanxi Normal University, Wuhan University and Sun Yat-sen University are also important bases for training doctoral students majoring in historical geography. After 198 1 year, historical geography academic journals such as Historical Geography (sponsored by Historical Geography Professional Committee), China Historical Geography Theory Series (sponsored by Shaanxi Normal University) and Environmental Change Research (sponsored by Peking University) were born one after another, which played a positive role in promoting the deepening and popularization of historical geography research in China. Because of this, China's contemporary historical geography not only got rid of the embarrassing situation of being a vassal of history for a long time, but also became a prominent school in the contemporary world together with scholars such as Lin. After nearly half a century's development, China's modern historical geography has made great academic achievements in the following aspects:
(1) Study on Historical Physical Geography
Focus on the study of natural geographical elements (climate, landform, soil, hydrology, animals and plants) and natural disasters in historical periods. Representative works include The Physical Geography and Historical Physical Geography of China (Science Press, 1982), Changes of Forests and Grassland on the Loess Plateau (Shaanxi People's Publishing House, 1985), and Historical Geomorphology.