The ''Yuanhe Xingzuan'' () is an imperial
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
register of the genealogies of China's prominent families. It was compiled by Lin Bao (林寶), on the order of
Emperor Xianzong
Emperor Xianzong of Tang (4 March to 1 April 778''Old Book of Tang'', vol. 14. – 14 February 820; r. 805 – 820), personal name Li Chun, né Li Chun (), was an emperor of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. He was the eldest son of Emperor Shunzon ...
(reigned 805–820), whose
era name
A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin ''regnum'' meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year o ...
was Yuanhe. The book was completed in 812 and records 1,232 surnames.
The ''Yuanhe Xingzuan'' contains the register of the most prominent families of the time, starting with Li (surname 李), Li 李, the imperial family. The other families are arranged according to the phonetic system of the ''Guangyun'' dictionary. The main sources are private genealogy books and not necessarily reliable historical facts. It also quotes from many older texts including ''Shiben'', ''Fengsu Tongyi'', ''Zuxingji'' (族姓記), ''Sanfu Juelu'' (三輔決錄), ''Baijiapu'' (百家譜), ''Yingxian Zhuan'' (英賢傳), ''Xingyuan Yunpu'' (姓源韻譜), and ''Xing Yuan'' (姓苑).
The original book was lost during the Song dynasty,
but Qing dynasty scholars Sun Xingyan (孫星衍) and Hong Ying (洪瑩) collected quotations from the Ming dynasty encyclopedia ''Yongle Dadian'' and the Song dynasty book ''Gujin Xingshi Shu Bianzheng'' (古今姓世書辨證), and compiled them into an 18-volume version which is included in the ''Siku Quanshu''.
See also
*''Yuanhe Maps and Records of Prefectures and Counties''
References
{{reflist
Tang dynasty literature
9th-century Chinese books
Genealogy publications
812
9th century in China