Digital Resources for Chinese Studies

7. Maps and Geographical Resources

This section includes links to sites with maps of China or GIS work related to China.

For more information on maps of China held at Harvard, please consult the Map Collection, which has many maps of China and of East Asia (please note that the majority of their holdings are not in HOLLIS), and the Harvard-Yenching Library.

For information on China-related GIS work at Harvard or help with GIS, please consult the Map Collection and the Center for Geographic Analysis.

China Historical GIS (Geographic Information System) (CHGIS) 中国历史地理信息系统
Ongoing project to create a database of historical administrative units for different periods of Chinese history. Also provides a free, base GIS platform for researchers to use for spatial analysis, temporal statistical modeling, and representation of selected historical units as digital maps. See also the companion Fudan University 复旦大学 site.

Chinese Civilization in Time and Space 中華文明之時空基礎架構
Created by the Academia Sinica 中央研究院 in Taiwan, this system aims to construct an integrated GIS-based application infrastructure allowing the integration of materials related to Chinese civilization during the imperial period (222 BCE – 1911 CE) in spatial and temporal frameworks.   It allows individual researchers to download map layers and contribute their results to the database. It also provides searching for information on historical place names, the Bibliography of Chinese Local Gazetteers 中國大陸各省地方志書目查詢系統, and the 輿圖要錄 from Beijing Library 北京图书馆

Technical requirements:  Requires installation of Java RunTime Environment 1.3.1 and the CCTS Plug-In 1.3.1 or, for those with Java RunTime 1.4.x (or above) already installed, ArcExplorer 9.  These are available for download from the Web site under Framework of Time and Space

To download and save CCTS map layers, please register for an individual account by clicking on the Registration tab at the top of the page.  Other parts of the site are open to the world.

State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping 国家测绘局 (People's Republic of China)
Over 400 downloadable maps are provided for public use. Maps of China are available at 14 different scales, maps of the world in 10 scales. There are various thematic maps of regions, agriculture, traffic, water, shipping, railways and tourist attractions.

ExEAS--Links: Maps
Annotated links to maps of China and East Asia

IGCS - Geography (China WWW VL - Internet Guide for Chinese Studies)
Extensive list of annotated links to China-related geographic resources, including a large map section.

Chinese Ancient Maps 中國古地圖
Scanned images of 54 ancient maps from China, available in thumbnail and .jpeg format (no further enlarging possible). For each map, the name and era is given. Created by the Geography Department of Hong Kong Baptist University.

Historical Maps of the Tang and Song Dynasties 唐宋代歷史地圖
A collection of several historical maps of Tang and Song China from volumes 5 and 6 of Tan Qixiang 谭其驤's 中國歷史地圖集. Clicking on a portion of the map enlarges it.

Maps from the Morrison Collection at the Toyo Bunko 財団法人 東洋文庫 所蔵 中華帝国図等
English version
Scanned images of a large collection of historical maps of China, Japan, and other parts of the world held by the Toyo Bunko.

Capital Edition Of A Complete Map (Of The World Based On) Astronomy 京板天文全圖
Introduction to and digitized version of the 京板天文全圖, a late-eighteenth century tripartite map of 'the world' held by the Woodson Research Center of Rice University's Fondren Library.

Bibliography of Chinese Local Gazetteers 中國大陸各省地方志書目查詢系統
Allows searching by a variety of terms (e.g. province, region, title, publication date, etc., of a large number of Chinese local gazetteers (地方志).

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Page Last Reviewed: July 17, 2009