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Geographical answer: How are the provincial boundaries of China divided?
Chinese administrative division's most basic principle can be summarized as "easy to manage" in four words. This is true whether it is the enfeoffment system in the pre-Qin period, the county system in the Qin, Han, Tang and Song dynasties, or the provincial system since the Yuan Dynasty.

First, the provincial boundaries are divided along the mountain, which is convenient for management. In ancient times, it was very inconvenient for residents and officials on both sides of the mountain and water to travel across the river to handle affairs. In order to facilitate management, mountains and rivers are the boundaries. Qilian Mountain, Taihang Mountain, Qin Jin section of the Yellow River, Jinsha River, etc. Historically, it has always been the dividing line between counties and provinces.

Second, it is convenient to divide the ethnic groups in the same region into one province and region for management. China's ethnic minorities have the characteristics of living in large groups and small communities, so provincial administrative regions have been established according to the situation of ethnic communities, such as Ningxia, which has a large area in Inner Mongolia and a small area in Xinjiang.

Third, large provinces are divided into small provinces, which is convenient for management. In history, jiangnan province Huguang Province has a huge volume and a large population. In order to facilitate management, the rulers divided jiangnan province into Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, and Huguang province into Hunan and Hubei provinces.

Fourth, crossing mountains and rivers and dividing provinces is for the convenience of management. Dividing the provincial boundaries according to the mountain situation has one disadvantage, that is, it is easy to March and defend, but it is difficult to attack where the water is not poured in. Therefore, the rulers of past dynasties deliberately did not divide the provincial boundaries according to the trend of mountains and rivers in some areas, such as dividing Shaanxi to the south of Qinling, Dongming County (now Shandong) to Hebei to the south of the Yellow River, and Anyang Xinxiang to Henan to the north of the Yellow River.

Fifth, strong and weak partners, with the rich to bring the poor, is to facilitate management. Generally speaking, the division of provinces in China is that a province consists of a rich place and one or several poor places, which can make the provinces more balanced and facilitate coordinated development. For example, when Jiangnan was divided into provinces, it was not divided into Jiangnan and Jiangbei provinces according to the mountain situation, but vertically divided into Anhui and Jiangsu. There are rich southern Anhui and southern Anhui in each province, and slightly backward northern Anhui and northern Jiangsu, which will not cause the situation that the strong province is too weak and the province is too weak.