Abstract China is one of the birthplaces of human beings and one of the countries in the world where cities originated earliest. The Chinese people have so far lived and worked in the vast land of China for over 5000 years, from the prehistoric civilization, including the āagricultural revolutionā in the period of the Longshan culture, Erlitou culture, Lantian culture and Hemudu Site culture, through the rise of cities in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties till now. During the 5000 years of Chinese civilization, there have emerged important national capitals, provincial capitals and more than 2000 county towns in the course of national unification and division in the Yellow River Basin, the Yangtze River basin and other coastal and inland regions. Currently, there are more than one hundred state historical and cultural cities, more than 600 cities and more than 20,000 organic towns.
Keywords Chinese urban history Ā· Chinese civilization Ā· China Ā· Cities Ā· Towns Ā· The Yellow River basin Ā· The Yangtze River Basin
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Ā© The Author(s) 2019
Chonglan Fu and Wenming CaoIntroduction to the Urban History of ChinaChina Connectionshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8207-9_11. Resplendent Brilliance of Chinese Urban History in the World Urban History
Chonglan Fu1 and Wenming Cao2
(1)Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China
(2)Criminology College, Peopleās Public Security University of China, Beijing, China
China is one of the birthplaces of human beings and one of the countries in the world where cities originated earliest. The regions in the world where cities originated earliest include the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in China, the Nile River basin in Egypt, the Indus River basin in India and the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris river system in Mesopotamia. The Chinese people have so far lived and worked in the vast land of China for over 5000 years, from the prehistoric civilization, including the āagricultural revolution ā in the period of the Longshan culture , Erlitou culture , Lantian culture and Hemudu site culture , through the rise of cities in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties till now. The building of city walls and settlements is a fundamental symbol of Chinese urbanārural development. Urban and rural areas, supplementing each other, are as close as lips and teeth. The center of gravity for the Chinese economic growth moved from the west to the east and from the north to the south, and then extended from the south to the north and from the east to the west. A rich variety of urbanārural patterns, architectural styles and dwelling forms with unique regional and ethnic features of 56 nationalities were formed.
Chinese cities are the symbol of Chinese civilization . Chinese urban history has overwhelmingly rich connotations and wide extensions and contains numerous mysteries of politics , economy , culture, military affairs and natural science. During the 5000 years of Chinese civilization , there have emerged important national capitals, provincial capitals and more than 2000 county towns in the course of national unification and division in the Yellow River Basin , the Yangtze River basin and other coastal and inland regions. More than 2000 years ago, west Han had a population of about 59 million people and more than 1600 county towns, many of which exist until now, which is a symbol of the industry, braveness, and infinite wisdom of the Chinese nation.
Currently, there are more than one hundred State Historical and Cultural Cities, more than 600 cities and more than 20,000 organic towns. So far, they have become modern regional centers of economy , society, science, education and culture, the centers for the Chinese people to strive for national prosperity and also the links of friendly exchanges between the Chinese people and the people from other countries in the world.
The history of the Chinese urban civilization is one of the symbols of the Chinese civilization and it shines with dazzling brilliance in the world urban history .
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Ā© The Author(s) 2019
Chonglan Fu and Wenming CaoIntroduction to the Urban History of ChinaChina Connectionshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8207-9_22. The Geographical, Economical, Social and Cultural Background of the History of Chinese Urban Evolution
Chonglan Fu1 and Wenming Cao2
(1)Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China
(2)Criminology College, Peopleās Public Security University of China, Beijing, China
The city is the vehicle of spiritual culture and the entity of material culture. Urban history is the history of studying the evolution of urban culture. Traditional culture, as a special entity of social information of all the past generations, is characterized by steadiness, variability, and inheritance. Traditional culture is a kind of mechanism for survival, the source of the cohesion of the nation and the antibody to maintain the vitality of the nation. Only through it can people of different generations be connected; only through it can predecessorsā experience be passed on to later generations; only through it can the spiritual and material achievements of the society be saved and passed down. And because of this the cultural tradition is not only contained in exhibits of the museum and thread-bound books. Rather it mainly concentrates on the city. It also actively exists in the practice of the people at present and in the future and serves as important components of their āthoughtābehaviorā paradigm. However, tradition sometimes acts as the inertia force. Therefore, hard efforts have to be made to get rid of some certain traditions when history is struggling to progress. It is advisable to adopt an analytic and historicist attitude toward the tradition due to its duality. We must try to avoid two extremes regarding the tradition, one being swallowing ancient learning without digesting it and the other being ignoring the history of oneās own country.
2.1 Geographical Basis
While various ever-changing phenomena exist in the world, they can be classified into two broad categories: celestial phenomena and occurrences on the earth. A third factor regarding culture is human affairs. According to The Bi Hexagram of The Zhou Book of Change, āThe future is smooth. It is proper for the weak and small ones to go for the destination. Mutual decoration between the firm and the yielding demonstrates the rich and bright colors of heaven. Refined civilization and rites for conduct are the rich and bright colors of human beings. Observation of the colorful celestial phenomena can help people understand alteration of seasons. And observation of the rich and bright colors of human beings can enlighten them and bring peace to the whole land.ā In Gongsun Zan of The Book of Later Han, there are words like āDonāt depend on the will of heaven and devote all the energy to human affairs.ā There are also lines in The Postscript of the Twelve Records of The Spring and Autumn of LĆ¼ Buwei, āObserve the will of Heaven above, examine occurrences on Earth and inspect human affairs in between.ā
Thus, celestial phenomena, occurrences on the earth and human affairs are closely connected with each other, forming the unique Chinese culture. The sources of celestial phenomena, occurrences on the earth and human affairs are related in the formation of almost all the Chinese culture, from state system, bureaucratic establishment, the city, and architecture, to poetry, painting and calligraphy, and writing system, and the three condense to a cultural system closely connected with the universe.
2.1.1 Geographical EnvironmentāThe Natural Basis to Create Culture
Geographical environment, including universal, geological, meteorological, hydrographic, physiographical and biological conditions, comprises the material foundation for humans to survive and natural preconditions to create culture. Human beings cannot go without geographical environment in any of its development stages. The Chinese nation inhabits the Eastern Asia of the northern hemisphere. One of the most important birthplaces of traditional Chinese culture is the Yellow River Basin. This more than 700,000 square kilometers of loess and flood plateau used to be a land with a perfect natural ecological environment covered with lush forests and thriving grass, where forefathers of the Chinese nation hunted and herded their cattle and horses, and farming was allowed to develop, a civilized foundation being laid.
The Yellow River Basin used to be referred to as the cradle of traditional Chinese culture. However, the Yellow River Basin is not the only place of origin of traditional Chinese culture. The fossils of the ape-men discovered in Yuanmou of Yunnan, Lantian of Shaanxi and Zhoukoudian of Beijing proved that forefathers of the Chinese nation had inhabited a vast area of East Asia a few hundred thousand years ago or even one million years ago. Recent decades of archaeological excavation proved that not only the Yellow River Basin but also the Changjiang River Basin and the Huaihe River Basin and the vast area among the high mountains and lofty hills in southern China have an over 4000 years of history of civilization. The total area of these lands combined amounts to five million square kilometers.
During the Shang dynasty, China formally entered the era with written records. From then on, the area for the forefathers of the Chinese nation to conduct various activities became increasingly expanded. Six cultural areas form...
