A gazetteer is a geographical
index
Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index''
* The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...
or
directory
Directory may refer to:
* Directory (computing), or folder, a file system structure in which to store computer files
* Directory (OpenVMS command)
* Directory service, a software application for organizing information about a computer network's u ...
used in conjunction with a map or
atlas.
[Aurousseau, 61.] It typically contains information concerning the geographical makeup,
social statistics and physical features of a country, region, or continent. Content of a gazetteer can include a subject's location, dimensions of peaks and waterways,
population,
gross domestic product and literacy rate. This information is generally divided into topics with entries listed in alphabetical order.
Ancient Greek gazetteers are known to have existed since the
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
era. The first known Chinese gazetteer was released by the first century, and with the age of print media in
China by the ninth century, the
Chinese gentry became invested in producing gazetteers for their local areas as a source of information as well as local pride. The geographer
Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephanus or Stephan of Byzantium ( la, Stephanus Byzantinus; grc-gre, Στέφανος Βυζάντιος, ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD), was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethni ...
wrote a geographical dictionary (which currently has missing parts) in the sixth century which influenced later European compilers. Modern gazetteers can be found in reference sections of most
libraries as well as on the internet.
Etymology
The ''
Oxford English Dictionary'' defines a "gazetteer" as a "geographical index or dictionary".
It includes as an example a work by the British historian
Laurence Echard (d. 1730) in 1693 that bore the title "The Gazetteer's: or Newsman's Interpreter: Being a Geographical Index".
Echard wrote that the title "Gazetteer's" was suggested to him by a "very eminent person" whose name he chose not to disclose.
For Part II of this work published in 1704, Echard referred to the book simply as "the Gazeteer". This marked the introduction of the word "gazetteer" into the
English language.
[White, 658.] Historian Robert C. White suggests that the "very eminent person" written of by Echard was his colleague
Edmund Bohun, and chose not to mention Bohun because he became associated with the
Jacobite movement.
Since the 18th century, the word "gazetteer" has been used interchangeably to define either its traditional meaning (i.e., a geographical dictionary or directory) or a daily
newspaper, such as the ''London Gazetteer''.
[Thomas, 623–636.][Asquith, 703–724.]
Types and organization
Gazetteers are often categorized by the type, and scope, of the information presented. ''World gazetteers'' usually consist of an alphabetical listing of countries, with pertinent
statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...
for each one, with some gazetteers listing information on individual
cities,
towns,
villages, and other
settlements of varying sizes. ''Short-form gazetteers'', often used in conjunction with computer mapping and
GIS
A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...
systems, may simply contain a list of place-names together with their locations in
latitude and
longitude or other
spatial referencing systems (e.g.,
British National Grid reference). Short-form gazetteers appear as a place–name index in the rear of major published atlases. ''Descriptive gazetteers'' may include lengthy textual descriptions of the places they contain, including explanation of
industries
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial secto ...
,
government,
geography, together with historical perspectives, maps and/or photographs. ''Thematic gazetteers'' list places or geographical features by theme; for example fishing ports,
nuclear power stations, or historic buildings. Their common element is that the geographical location is an important attribute of the features listed.
Gazetteer editors gather facts and other information from official government reports, the
census,
chambers of commerce, together with numerous other sources, and organise these in
digest
Digest may refer to:
Biology
*Digestion of food
*Restriction digest
Literature and publications
*''The Digest'', formerly the English and Empire Digest
*Digest size magazine format
* ''Digest'' (Roman law), also known as ''Pandects'', a digest ...
form.
History
Western world
Hellenistic and Greco-Roman eras
In his journal article "Alexander and the Ganges" (1923), the 20th-century historian
W.W. Tarn calls a list and description of
satrap
A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires.
The satrap served as viceroy to the king, though with consid ...
ies of
Alexander's Empire
Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by ...
written between 324 and 323 BC as an ancient gazetteer.
[Tarn, 93–94.] Tarn notes that the document is dated no later than June 323 BC, since it features
Babylon as not yet partitioned by Alexander's generals.
[Tarn, 94.] It was revised by the Greek historian
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which su ...
in the 1st century BC.
In the 1st century BC,
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς,
; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary sty ...
mentioned the
chronicle
A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...
-type format of the writing of the
logographers in the age before the founder of the Greek historiographic tradition,
Herodotus (i.e., before the 480s BC), saying "they did not write connected accounts but instead broke them up according to peoples and cities, treating each separately".
[Brown (1954), 837.] Historian
Truesdell S. Brown asserts that what Dionysius describes in this quote about the logographers should be categorized not as a true "history" but rather as a gazetteer.
While discussing the Greek conception of the
river delta in ancient Greek literature, Francis Celoria notes that both
Ptolemy and
Pausanias of the 2nd century AD provided gazetteer information on geographical terms.
[Celoria, 387.]
Perhaps predating Greek gazetteers were those made in
ancient Egypt. Although she does not specifically label the document as a gazetteer,
Penelope Wilson
Penelope ('Penny') Wilson is a British lecturer of Egyptology in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University, UK. She is a member of the Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East. She is also the field director of ...
(Department of Archaeology,
Durham University
, mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills (Psalm 87:1)
, established = (university status)
, type = Public
, academic_staff = 1,830 (2020)
, administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19)
, chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen
, vice_chan ...
) describes an ancient Egyptian
papyrus found at the site of
Tanis, Egypt (a city founded during the
Twentieth dynasty of Egypt) which provides the following for each
administrative area of Egypt at the time:
[Wilson (2003), 98.]
...the name of a nome capital, its sacred barque, its sacred tree, its cemetery, the date of its festival, the names of forbidden objects, the local god, land, and lake of the city. This interesting codification of data, probably made by a priest, is paralleled by very similar editions of data on the temple walls at Edfu, for example.
Medieval and early modern eras
The ''
Domesday Book'' initiated by
William I of England in 1086 was a government survey on all the administrative counties of England; it was used to assess the properties of farmsteads and landholders in order to tax them sufficiently. In the survey, numerous English
castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
s were listed; scholars debate on exactly how many were actually referenced in the book.
[Harfield, 372.] However, the ''Domesday Book'' does detail the fact that out of 3,558 registered houses destroyed in 112 different boroughs listed, 410 of these destroyed houses were the direct result of castle construction and expansion.
[Harfield, 373–374.] In 1316 the
Nomina Villarum
''Nomina Villarum'' was a survey carried out in 1316 and contains a list of all cities, boroughs and townships in England and the Lords of them. The document was compiled for King Edward II. The survey was a feudal aid, a payment which by traditio ...
survey was initiated by
Edward II of England; it was essentially a list of all the administrative subdivisions throughout England which could be utilized by the state in order to assess how much military troops could be conscripted and summoned from each region.
[Ravenhill, 425.] The ''
Speculum Britanniae
''Speculum Britanniae'' ("Mirror of Britain"), published in London from 1593, was a projected, but unfinished, chorography of Britain by John Norden (1548—1625).S.G. Mendyk, ''Speculum Britanniae: regional study, antiquarianism, and science in B ...
'' (1596) of the
Tudor era English cartographer and topographer
John Norden (1548–1625) had an alphabetical list of places throughout England with headings showing their
administrative hundreds and referenced to attached maps.
[Ravenhill, 424.] Englishman
John Speed
John Speed (1551 or 1552 – 28 July 1629) was an English cartographer, chronologer and historian of Cheshire origins.S. Bendall, 'Speed, John (1551/2–1629), historian and cartographer', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (OUP 2004/ ...
's ''Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine'' published in 1611 provided gazetteers for counties throughout England, which included illustrative maps, short local histories, a list of administrative hundreds, an index of
parishes, and the coordinates of
longitude and
latitude for county towns.
[Ravenhill, 426.] Starting in 1662, the Hearth Tax Returns with attached maps of local areas were compiled by individual parishes throughout England while a duplicate of their records were sent to the central government offices of the
Exchequer.
To supplement his "new large Map of England" from 1677, the English cartographer
John Adams compiled the extensive gazetteer "Index Villaris" in 1680 that had some 24,000 places listed with geographical coordinates coinciding with the map.
The "Geographical Dictionary" of
Edmund Bohun was published in
London in 1688, comprising 806 pages with some 8,500 entries.
[White, 657.] In his work, Edmund Bohun attributed the first known Western geographical dictionary to geographer
Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephanus or Stephan of Byzantium ( la, Stephanus Byzantinus; grc-gre, Στέφανος Βυζάντιος, ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD), was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethni ...
(fl. 6th century) while also noting influence in his work from the ''Thesaurus Geographicus'' (1587) by the
Belgian cartographer
Abraham Ortelius
Abraham Ortelius (; also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; 4 or 14 April 152728 June 1598) was a Brabantian cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer, conventionally recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the ''Theatrum Orbis Terraru ...
(1527–1598), but stated that Ortelius' work dealt largely with ancient geography and not up-to-date information.
Only fragments of Stephanus' geographical work ''Ethnica'' (Εθνικά) have survived and were first examined by the Italian printer
Aldus Manutius
Aldus Pius Manutius (; it, Aldo Pio Manuzio; 6 February 1515) was an Italian printer and humanist who founded the Aldine Press. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preserv ...
in his work of 1502.
The Italian monk
Phillippus Ferrarius (d. 1626) published his geographical dictionary "Epitome Geographicus in Quattuor Libros Divisum" in the Swiss city of
Zurich in 1605.
[White, 656.] He divided this work into overhead topics of cities, rivers, mountains, and lakes and swamps.
All placenames, given in
Latin, were arranged in alphabetical order for each overhead division by geographic type;.
A year after his death, his "Lexicon Geographicum" was published, which contained more than 9,000 different entries for geographic places.
This was an improvement over Ortelius' work, since it included modern placenames and places discovered since the time of Ortelius.
Pierre Duval (1618–1683), a nephew of the French cartographer
Nicolas Sanson
Nicolas Sanson (20 December 1600 – 7 July 1667) was a French cartographer who served under two kings in matters of geography. He has been called the "father of French cartography."
Life and work
He was born of an old Picard family of Sco ...
, wrote various geographical dictionaries. These include a dictionary on the
abbeys of France, a dictionary on ancient sites of the
Assyrians,
Persians,
Greeks, and
Romans with their modern equivalent names, and a work published in
Paris in 1651 that was both the first universal and
vernacular geographical dictionary of Europe.
With the gradual expansion of
Laurence Echard's (d. 1730) gazetteer of 1693, it too became a universal geographical dictionary that was translated into
Spanish in 1750, into
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
in 1809, and into
Italian in 1810.
[White, 659.]
Following the
American Revolutionary War, United States clergyman and historian
Jeremy Belknap and
Postmaster General Ebenezer Hazard
Ebenezer Hazard (January 15, 1744 – June 13, 1817) was an American businessman and publisher. He served in a variety of political posts during and after the American Revolutionary War: as Postmaster of New York City; in 1776 as surveyor general ...
intended to create the first post-revolutionary geographical works and gazetteers, but they were anticipated by the clergyman and geographer
Jedidiah Morse with his ''Geography Made Easy'' in 1784. However, Morse was unable to finish the gazetteer in time for his 1784 geography and postponed it.
Yet his delay to publish it lasted too long, as it was Joseph Scott in 1795 who published the first post-revolutionary American gazetteer, his ''Gazetteer of the United States''.
[Brown (1941), 189.] With the aid of
Noah Webster and Rev. Samuel Austin, Morse finally published his gazetteer ''The American Universal Geography'' in 1797.
[Brown (1941), 189–190.] However, Morse's gazetteer did not receive distinction by literary critics, as gazetteers were deemed as belonging to a lower literary class.
[Brown (1941), 190.] The reviewer of Joseph Scott's 1795 gazetteer commented that it was "little more than medleys of politics, history and miscellaneous remarks on the manners, languages and arts of different nations, arranged in the order in which the territories stand on the map".
Nevertheless, in 1802 Morse followed up his original work by co-publishing ''A New Gazetteer of the Eastern Continent'' with Rev. Elijah Parish, the latter of whom Ralph H. Brown asserts did the "lion's share of the work in compiling it".
[Brown (1941), 194.]
Modern era
Gazetteers became widely popular in
Britain in the 19th century, with publishers such as
Fullarton
Fullarton is a small area in Irvine, North Ayrshire. It is situated close to Irvine Bay and is next to several industrial estates, large supermarkets and retail stores and the town centre itself. Stagecoach Western buses operate the local bus s ...
,
Mackenzie,
Chambers
Chambers may refer to:
Places
Canada:
* Chambers Township, Ontario
United States:
* Chambers County, Alabama
*Chambers, Arizona, an unincorporated community in Apache County
*Chambers, Nebraska
* Chambers, West Virginia
*Chambers Township, Holt ...
and
W & A. K. Johnston, many of whom were
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
, meeting public demand for information on an expanding Empire. This British tradition continues in the electronic age with innovations such as the
National Land and Property Gazetteer
The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) is an initiative in England and Wales to provide a definitive and consistent address infrastructure. Up until recently Great Britain has not held a single list of all addresses in the country, meaning ...
, the text-based
Gazetteer for Scotland
The ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is a gazetteer covering the geography, history and people of Scotland. It was conceived in 1995 by Bruce Gittings of the University of Edinburgh and David Munro of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and cont ...
, and the new (2008)
National Gazetteer (for Scotland)
The One Scotland Gazetteer is the definitive national land, property and address dataset for Scotland that is published bwithin the Improvement Service. It is compiled using information from all 32 Scottish Scottish councils, councils and produced ...
, formerly known as the Definitive National Address – Scotland National Gazetteer. In addition to local or regional gazetteers, there have also been comprehensive world gazetteers published; an early example would be the 1912 world gazetteer published by
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
[Aurousseau, 66.] There are also interregional gazetteers with a specific focus, such as the gazetteer of the Swedish atlas "Das Bästas Bilbok" (1969), a road atlas and guide for
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
,
Norway,
Finland, and
Denmark.
[Murphy, 113.]
East Asia
China
In
Han dynasty (202 BC–220 AD)
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, the ''
Yuejue Shu'' (越絕書) written in 52 AD is considered by modern
sinologists and historians to be the prototype of the gazetteer (
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
: ''difangzhi''), as it contained essays on a wide variety of subjects including changes in territorial division, the founding of cities, local products, and customs.
[Hargett (1996), 406.] However, the first gazetteer proper is considered to be the
Chronicles of Huayang by
Chang Qu 常璩. There are over 8,000 gazetteers of pre-modern China that have survived.
[Hargett (1996), 405.][Thogersen & Clausen, 162.] Gazetteers became more common in the
Song dynasty (960–1279), yet the bulk of surviving gazetteers were written during the
Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and
Qing dynasty (1644–1912).
Modern scholar Liu Weiyi notes that just under 400 gazetteers were compiled in the era between the
fall of the Han dynasty in 220 and the
Tang dynasty (618–907).
[Hargett (1996), 407.] Gazetteers from this era focused on boundaries and territory, place names, mountains and rivers, ancient sites, local products, local
myths and legends, customs,
botany,
topography, and locations of palaces, streets, temples, etc.
[Hargett (1996), 408.] By the Tang dynasty the gazetteer became much more geographically specific, with a broad amount of content arranged topically; for example, there would be individual sections devoted to local astronomy, schools, dikes, canals, post stations, altars, local deities, temples, tombs, etc.
[Hargett (1996), 411.] By the Song dynasty it became more common for gazetteers to provide biographies of local celebrities, accounts of elite local families, bibliographies, and literary anthologies of poems and essays dedicated to famous local spots.
Song gazetteers also made lists and descriptions of city walls, gate names, wards and markets, districts, population size, and residences of former
prefects.
In 610 after the
Sui dynasty
The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and layi ...
(581–618) united a politically divided China,
Emperor Yang of Sui
Emperor Yang of Sui (隋煬帝, 569 – 11 April 618), personal name Yang Guang (), alternative name Ying (), Xianbei name Amo (), also known as Emperor Ming of Sui () during the brief reign of his grandson Yang Tong, was the second emperor of ...
had all the
empire's commanderies prepare gazetteers called '
maps and treatises' (Chinese: ''tujing'') so that a vast amount of updated textual and visual information on local roads, rivers, canals, and landmarks could be utilized by the central government to maintain control and provide better security.
[Hargett (1996), 409–410.][Needham, Volume 3, 518.] Although the
earliest extant Chinese maps date to the 4th century BC,
[Hsu, 90.] and ''tujing'' since the
Qin Qin may refer to:
Dynasties and states
* Qin (state) (秦), a major state during the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China
* Qin dynasty (秦), founded by the Qin state in 221 BC and ended in 206 BC
* Daqin (大秦), ancient Chinese name for the Roman Emp ...
(221–206 BC) or Han dynasties, this was the first known instance in China when the textual information of ''tujing'' became the primary element over the drawn illustrations.
[Hargett (1996), 409.] This Sui dynasty process of providing maps and visual aids in written gazetteers—as well as the submitting of gazetteers with illustrative maps by local administrations to the central government—was continued in every subsequent
Chinese dynasty.
[Hargett (1996), 410.]
Historian James M. Hargett states that by the time of the Song dynasty, gazetteers became far more geared towards serving the current political, administrative, and military concerns than in gazetteers of previous eras, while there were many more gazetteers compiled on the local and national levels than in previous eras.
[Hargett (1996), 412.] Emperor Taizu of Song ordered Lu Duosun and a team of cartographers and scholars in 971 to initiate the compilation of a huge atlas and nationwide gazetteer that covered the whole of
China proper,
which comprised approximately 1,200
counties and 300
prefectures.
[Bol, 44.] This project was completed in 1010 by a team of scholars under Song Zhun, who presented it in 1,566 chapters to the throne of
Emperor Zhenzong.
This Sui dynasty process of infrequently collecting ''tujing'' or "map guides" continued, but it would be enhanced by the matured literary genre of ''fangzhi'' or "treatise on a place" of the Song dynasty.
Although Zheng Qiao of the 12th century did not notice the ''fangzhi'' while writing his encyclopedic ''Tongzhi'' including monographs to geography and cities, others such as the bibliographer Chen Zhensun of the 13th century were listing gazetteers instead of the map guides in their works.
The main differences between the ''fangzhi'' and the ''tujing'' was that the former was a product of "local initiative, not a central command" according to Peter K. Bol, and were usually ten, twenty, or even fifty chapters in length compared to the average four chapters for map guides.
[Bol, 46.] Furthermore, the ''fangzhi'' were almost always
printed because they were intended for a large reading audience, whereas ''tujing'' were exclusive records read by the local officials who drafted them and the central government officials who collected them.
Although most Song gazetteers credited local officials as the authors, already in the Song there were bibliographers who noted that non-official literati were asked to compose these works or did so on their own behalf. By the 16th century—during the Ming dynasty—local gazetteers were commonly composed due to local decision-making rather than a central government mandate.
[Bol, 38.] Historian Peter K. Bol states that local gazetteers composed in this manner were the result of increased domestic and international trade that facilitated greater local wealth throughout China.
Historian
R. H. Britnell writes of gazetteers in Ming China, "by the sixteenth century, for a
county or
monastery not to have a gazetteer was regarded as evidence that the place was inconsequential".
While working in the
Department of Arms, the Tang dynasty cartographer
Jia Dan (730–805) and his colleagues would
acquire information from foreign envoys about their respective homelands, and from these interrogations would produce maps supplemented by textual information.
[Schafer, 26–27.] Even within China,
ethnographic information on
ethnic minorities of non-
Han
Han may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group.
** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...
peoples were often described in the local histories and gazetteers of provinces such as
Guizhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties.
[Hostetler, 633.] As the Qing dynasty pushed further with its troops and government authorities into areas of Guizhou that were uninhabited and not administered by the Qing government, the official gazetteers of the region would be revised to include the newly drawn-up districts and non-Han ethnic groups (mostly
Miao people
The Miao are a group of linguistically-related peoples living in Southern China and Southeast Asia, who are recognized by the government of China as one of the 56 List of ethnic groups in China, official ethnic groups. The Miao live primarily in ...
s) therein.
While the late Ming dynasty officials who compiled the information on the ethnic groups of Guizhou offered scanty details about them in their gazetteers (perhaps due to their lack of contact with these peoples), the later Qing dynasty gazetteers often provided a much more comprehensive analysis.
[Hostetler, 634.] By 1673 the Guizhou gazetteers featured different written entries for the various Miao peoples of the region.
Historian Laura Holsteter writes on the
woodblock print illustrations of Miao peoples in the Guizhou gazeteer, stating "the 1692 version of the
Kangxi era
The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 1654– 20 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, born Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1661 to 1 ...
gazetteer show a refinement in the quality of the illustrations by comparison to 1673".
Historian
Timothy Brook states that Ming dynasty gazetteers demonstrate a shift in the attitudes of
Chinese gentry towards the traditionally lower
merchant class.
As time went on, the gentry solicited funds from merchants to build and repair schools, print scholarly books, build
Chinese pagodas on
auspicious sites, and other things that were needed by the gentry and
scholar-officials
The scholar-officials, also known as literati, scholar-gentlemen or scholar-bureaucrats (), were government officials and prestigious scholars in Chinese society, forming a distinct social class.
Scholar-officials were politicians and governmen ...
in order to succeed.
[Brook, 6–7, 73, 90–93, 129–130, 151.] Hence, the gentry figures composing the gazetteers in the latter half of the Ming period spoke favorably of merchants, whereas before they were rarely mentioned.
Brook and other modern sinologist historians also examine and consult the local Ming gazetteers to compare population info with the contemporary central government records, which often provided dubious population figures that did not reflect the actually larger population size of China during the time.
[Brook, 28, 94–96, 267.]
Although better known for his work on the ''
Gujin Tushu Jicheng'' encyclopedia, the early-to-mid Qing scholar
Jiang Tingxi
Jiang Tingxi (, 1669–1732Barnhart: Page 379.), courtesy name Yangsun (), was a Chinese painter, and an editor of the encyclopedia ''Gujin Tushu Jicheng'' (''Complete Collection of Ancient and Modern Writings and Charts'').
Jiang was born in ...
aided other scholars in the compilation of the "Daqing Yitongzhi" ('Gazetteer of the Qing Empire').
[Fairbank & Teng, 211.] This was provided with a preface in 1744 (more than a decade after Jiang's death), revised in 1764, and reprinted in 1849.
The
Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci, SJ (; la, Mattheus Riccius; 6 October 1552 – 11 May 1610), was an Italians, Italian Society of Jesus, Jesuit Priesthood in the Catholic Church, priest and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions. He create ...
created the first comprehensive world map in the
Chinese language in the early 17th century,
[Wong, 44.] while comprehensive world gazetteers were later translated into Chinese by Europeans. The
Christian missionary William Muirhead (1822–1900), who lived in
Shanghai during the late Qing period, published the gazetteer "Dili quanzhi", which was reprinted in Japan in 1859.
Divided into fifteen volumes, this work covered Europe, Asia, Africa, and the
Pacific Ocean Archipelagos, and was sub-divided further into sections on geography, topography, water masses, atmosphere, biology, anthropology, and historical geography.
[Masuda, 18–19.] Chinese maritime trade gazetteers mentioned a slew of different countries that came to trade in China, such as United States vessels docking at
Canton
Canton may refer to:
Administrative division terminology
* Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries, notably Switzerland
* Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French
Arts and ent ...
in the "Yuehaiguanzhi" ('Gazetteer of the Maritime Customs of Guangdong') published in 1839 (reprinted in 1935).
[Fairbank & Teng, 215.] The Chinese language gazetteer ''
Haiguo Tuzhi
The ''Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms'', or ''Haiguo Tuzhi'', is a 19th-century Chinese gazetteer compiled by scholar-official Wei Yuan and others, based on initial translations ordered by Special Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu. The ...
'' ('Illustrated Gazetteer of the Sea Kingdoms') by
Wei Yuan in 1844 (with material influenced by the "Sizhou zhi" of
Lin Zexu)
[Masuda, 32.] was printed in Japan two decades later 1854.
[Masuda, 23–24.] This work was popular in Japan not for its geographical knowledge, but for its analysis of potential defensive military strategy in the face of European imperialism and the Qing's recent defeat in the
First Opium War
The First Opium War (), also known as the Opium War or the Anglo-Sino War was a series of military engagements fought between Britain and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of the ...
due to European artillery and gunboats.
Continuing an old tradition of ''fangzhi'', the
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
had gazetteers composed and created national standards for them in 1929, updating these in 1946.
[Vermeer 440.] The printing of gazetteers was revived in 1956 under
Mao Zedong and again in the 1980s, after the reforms of the
Deng era to replace the
people's communes with traditional
townships.
[Thogersen & Clausen, 161–162.] The ''difangzhi'' effort under Mao yielded little results (only 10 of the 250 designated counties ended up publishing a gazetteer), while the writing of ''difangzhi'' was interrupted during the
Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), trumped by the village and family histories which were more appropriate for the theme of
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
.
[Thogersen & Clausen, 163.] A Li Baiyu of
Shanxi
Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...
forwarded a letter to the
CCP Propaganda Department on May 1, 1979, which urged for the revival of ''difangzhi''.
This proposal was sponsored by
Hu Yaobang in June 1979 while
Hu Qiaomu
Hu Qiaomu (4 June 191228 September 1992) was a Chinese sociologist, Marxist philosopher and politician.
Hu Qiaomu is a controversial figure for opposing the reform and opening up era of economic reform that followed the death of Mao Zedong. He w ...
of the CCP Politburo lent his support for the idea in April 1980.
The first issue of a modern national journal of ''difangzhi'' was issued by January 1981.
Korea
In
Korea, scholars based their gazetteers largely on the Chinese model.
[McCune, 326.] Like Chinese gazetteers, there were national, provincial, and local prefecture Korean gazetteers which featured geographic information, demographic data, locations of bridges, schools, temples, tombs, fortresses, pavilions, and other landmarks, cultural customs, local products, resident clan names, and short biographies on well-known people.
[Provine, 8.][Lewis, 225–226.] In an example of the latter, the 1530 edition of "Sinjŭng tongguk yŏji sŭngnam" ('New Edition of the Korean National Gazetteer') gave a brief statement about Pak Yŏn (1378–1458), noting his successful career in the
civil service
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
, his exceptional filiality, his brilliance in
music theory
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...
, and his praisable efforts in systematizing ritual music for
Sejong's court.
King Sejong established the
Joseon
Joseon (; ; Middle Korean: 됴ᇢ〯션〮 Dyǒw syéon or 됴ᇢ〯션〯 Dyǒw syěon), officially the Great Joseon (; ), was the last dynastic kingdom of Korea, lasting just over 500 years. It was founded by Yi Seong-gye in July 1392 and re ...
dynasty's first national gazetteer in 1432, called the "Sinch'an p'aldo" ('Newly Compiled Geographic Treatise on the Eight Circuits').
[Lewis, 225.] With additional material and correction of mistakes, the title of this gazetteer was revised in 1454 as the "Sejong Sillok chiriji" ('King Sejong's Treatise on Geography'), updated in 1531 under the title "Sinjŭng tongguk yŏji sŭngnam" ('Augmented Survey of the Geography of Korea'),
and enlarged in 1612.
[Pratt & Rutt, 423.] The Joseon Koreans also created international gazetteers. The "Yojisongnam" gazetteer compiled from 1451 to 1500 provides a small description for 369 different foreign countries known to Joseon Korea in the 15th century.
Japan
In
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, there were also local gazetteers in pre-modern times, called ''
fudoki''.
[Miller, 279.] Japanese gazetteers preserved historical and legendary accounts of various regions. For example, the
Nara-period (710–794) provincial gazetteer ''Harima no kuni fūdoki'' of
Harima Province
or Banshū (播州) was a province of Japan in the part of Honshū that is the southwestern part of present-day Hyōgo Prefecture. Harima bordered on Tajima, Tanba, Settsu, Bizen, and Mimasaka Provinces. Its capital was Himeji.
During the ...
provides a story of an alleged visit by
Emperor Ōjin
, also known as (alternatively spelled 譽田別命, 誉田別命, 品陀和気命, 譽田分命, 誉田別尊, 品陀別命) or , was the 15th (possibly legendary) Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.
No firm dat ...
in the 3rd century while on an imperial hunting expedition.
[Taryō, 178.] Local Japanese gazetteers could also be found in later periods such as the
Edo period.
[Levine, 78.] Gazetteers were often composed by the request of wealthy patrons; for example, six scholars in the service of the ''
daimyō'' of the
Ikeda household published the ''Biyō kokushi'' gazetteer for several counties in 1737.
[Hall, 211.] World gazetteers were written by the Japanese in the 19th century, such as the ''Kon'yo zushiki'' ("Annotated Maps of the World") published by Mitsukuri Shōgo in 1845, the ''Hakkō tsūshi'' ("Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Entire World") by Mitsukuri Genpo in 1856, and the ''Bankoku zushi'' ("Illustrated Gazetteer of the Nations of the World"), which was written by an Englishman named Colton, translated by Sawa Ginjirō, and printed by Tezuka Ritsu in 1862.
[Masuda, 18.] Despite the ambitious title, the work by Genpo only covered ''Yōroppa bu'' ("Section on Europe") while the planned section for Asia was not published.
In 1979 the 50 volume gazeteer ''Nihon rekishi chimei taikei'' ("Japanese Historical Place Names") series was launched and it is currently also available online with "200,000 headings with detailed explanations of
achplace name".
South Asia
In pre-modern
India, local gazetteers were written. For example,
Muhnot Nainsi
Muhnot Nainsi (1610–1670) is known for his studies of the region now encompassed by the state of Rajasthan in India.
He was a contemporary of Rathore ruler Jaswant Singh of Marwar.
He was son of Jaimal Muhnot, who was senior office holder und ...
wrote a gazetteer (
Nainsi ri Khyat and Marwar rai Pargana ri Vigat) for the
Marwar region in the 17th century.
[Gole, 102.] B. S. Baliga writes that the history of the gazetteer in
Tamil Nadu can be traced back to the classical corpus of
Sangam literature, dated 200 BC to 300 AD.
[Baliga, 255.] Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak
Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, also known as Abul sharma, Abu'l Fadl and Abu'l-Fadl 'Allami (14 January 1551 – 22 August 1602), was the grand vizier of the Mughal emperor Akbar, from his appointment in 1579 until his death in 1602. He was the au ...
, the
vizier to
Akbar the Great
Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
of the
Mughal Empire, wrote the ''
Ain-e-Akbari
The ''Ain-i-Akbari'' ( fa, ) or the "Administration of Akbar", is a 16th-century detailed document recording the administration of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Akbar, written by his court historian, Abu'l Fazl in the Persian language. It for ...
'', which included a gazetteer with valuable information on India's population in the 16th century.
[Floor & Clawson, 347–348.]
Muslim world
The pre-modern
Islamic world
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In ...
produced gazetteers. Cartographers of the
Safavid dynasty
The Safavid dynasty (; fa, دودمان صفوی, Dudmâne Safavi, ) was one of Iran's most significant ruling dynasties reigning from 1501 to 1736. Their rule is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history, as well as one of th ...
of
Iran made gazetteers of local areas.
List of gazetteers
Worldwide
*
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
The Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (abbreviated TGN) is a product of the J. Paul Getty Trust included in the Getty Vocabulary Program. The TGN includes names and associated information about places. Places in TGN include administrative politic ...
* Marine Regions
Antarctica
*
Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica
The Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica (CGA) of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is the authoritative international gazetteer containing all Antarctic toponyms published in national gazetteers, plus basic information about th ...
Australia
*
Gazetteer of Australia
United Kingdom
*
National Land and Property Gazetteer
The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) is an initiative in England and Wales to provide a definitive and consistent address infrastructure. Up until recently Great Britain has not held a single list of all addresses in the country, meaning ...
*
National Street Gazetteer
The National Street Gazetteer (NSG) is a database of all streets in England and Wales compiled from the responsible highway authorities which is restricted to local authorities and statutory undertakers (e.g. for maintenance or installing servic ...
*
The Gazetteer for Scotland
The ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is a gazetteer covering the geography, history and people of Scotland. It was conceived in 1995 by Bruce Gittings of the University of Edinburgh and David Munro of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and cont ...
* ''
Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland
The ''Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland'' is a topographical dictionary first published in parts between 1854 and 1857,
edited by the Reverend John Marius Wilson. It also appeared in two undated volumes in 1868 and was described as "A Dictionary of S ...
''
* ''
Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales
The ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' is a substantial topographical dictionary first published between 1870 and 1872, edited by the Reverend John Marius Wilson. It contains a detailed description of England and Wales. Its six volumes h ...
''
India
* ''
The Imperial Gazetteer of India''
See also
*
List of geography topics
This page is a list of geography topics.
Geography is the study of the world and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity. Geography research addresses both the questions of ''where'', as w ...
*
Toponymy
Notes
References
*
*
* Baliga, B.S. (2002). ''Madras District Gazetteers''. Chennai: Superintendent, Government Press.
*
* Britnell, R.H. (1997). ''Pragmatic Literacy, East and West, 1200–1330''. Woodbridge, Rochester: The Boydell Press. .
*
Brook, Timothy. (1998). ''
The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China''. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Paperback).
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Lewis, James B. (2003). ''Frontier Contact Between Choson Korea and Tokugawa Japan''. New York: Routledge. .
* Masuda, Wataru. (2000). ''Japan and China: Mutual Representations in the Modern Era''. Translated by Joshua A. Fogel. New York: St. Martin's Press. .
*
*
*
* Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
* Pratt, Keith L. and Richard Rutt. (1999). ''Korea: A Historical and Cultural Dictionary''. Richmond: Routledge; Curzon Press. .
*
*
* Schafer, Edward H. (1963). ''The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of T’ang Exotics''. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1st paperback edition: 1985. .
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Wilson, Penelope. (2003). ''Sacred Signs: Hieroglyphs in Ancient Egypt''. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. .
*
External link
{{Authority control
*
Encyclopedias