The word "geography" appeared as early as the pre-Qin materials. In the Tang Dynasty, when Confucius annotated Zhouyi, he explained: "There are mountains, rivers and plains, and each has its own principles, so it is called reason."
In Modern Chinese Dictionary, mountains and rivers refer to mountains, rivers and famous mountains and rivers. "Shape victory" means superior terrain and great momentum. As early as "Historical Records", people made a preliminary exposition of the terrain.
Geography, compiled by Ban Gu when he wrote Hanshu in the Eastern Han Dynasty, was the earliest book that recorded Lu Yu's mountains and rivers in detail, and it was also the first scientific document named after geography in the history of China. Later, some historical books were mostly written in the style of Hanshu.
Through the analysis of comprehensive phenomena, Zhang Heng of the Eastern Han Dynasty defined the seismograph; Monks and their entourage in the Tang Dynasty made a preliminary measurement of the meridian length. Xu Xiake, a geographer in Ming Dynasty, summed up his travel experience and created a new direction to describe nature. His Travels of Xu Xiake not only systematically investigated the landform and geology of the motherland.
It also depicts the vast and beautiful scenic resources of China. In other words, the content of later "geography" was not limited to mountains and rivers. It covers everything from astronomy to mountains and rivers.
It also includes the human landscape and the relationship between heaven, earth and people. This is further developed on the basis of Ban Gu's Geography. As a result, people expanded the meaning of the word "geography" to refer to all mountains and rivers.