The content of History of Han Geography includes three parts: the first part quotes the full text of Gong Yu and the Kyushu part of Zhou Li's Local Records; In the middle, the administrative system of the Western Han Dynasty is the key link, and various geographical materials such as mountains, rivers, products and historical sites are attached in sections; At the end, there are Liu Xiang's territory and Zhu Gan's customs, and some overseas traffic conditions are recorded.
This structure fully embodies Ban Gu's understanding of "geography". He said in "Han Biography": "From the past Huang and Tang Dynasties, we managed the world, decided things, and governed the north and south; Three generations of gains and losses, down to Qin, Han, Ge and so on. Setting up a county, sketching mountains and rivers and showing its judgment are described in the eighth chapter of Geography. In other words, although his concept of "geography" also includes the situation of mountains and rivers, he is more concerned about its "border management" and "judgment", that is, administrative establishment. Therefore, he gave full respect to Gong Yu and recorded its full text at the beginning of Hanshu Geography. He didn't realize the significance of Gong Yu to geography as we do today, but just regarded it as one of the administrative systems, which happened to be implemented in the legendary Xia Yu period. Similarly, he recorded Kyushu, which was handed down as the administrative system of the Zhou Dynasty, without discrimination. Because of this, when history marched to the Qin and Han dynasties, the fifth-class national seal had been changed, and the legendary Kyushu had become a thing of the past. At this time, the "judgment" has passed through the counties. Ban Gu changed the program of Geography from Yugong Kyushu and Local Records to County Records of Han Dynasty, which is a pioneering work. This credit should have belonged to Sima Qian, the Tai Shi Gong.
This understanding of "geography" also typically reflects an important feature of ancient science in China: it emphasizes practicality and utility, while ignoring academic discussion. The Biography of Li Han Xun contains the master's words: "Look up at astronomy, look down at geography, watch the news of the sun and the moon, wait for the stars to travel in the army, pat the changes of mountains and rivers, participate in folk customs, and measure fortune by learning the law." Obviously, people regarded geography as an applied science at that time. Regardless of natural factors (changes in mountains and rivers) or human conditions (folk customs), the purpose of research is to help people (statutes and fortunes). After describing the administrative system and corresponding geographical data of the Western Han Dynasty, Ban Gu also sorted out the customs of Liu Xiang's domain fen and Zhu Gan, which were "still undeclared" at that time and could not be said to be meaningful.
This concept has penetrated into geography, which has formed a very strong mindset, that is, ignoring nature and attaching importance to humanity. After Hanshu Shiji, the official records of geography in past dynasties formed a tradition, but the content only followed Hanshu Shiji. Some of them are simple or even bare, while others, such as mountains, rivers, products, historical sites and water conservancy, are completely absent. Shen Yue said in the Preface of Song and Zhou Shujun: "The geography is uneven, so it is difficult to mention the details. In fact, it is because of the sudden name change, repeated division of land and soil, or a county, divided into four or five, with clutch; Ever-changing, clever calendar does not count, it is not easy to understand to find a school to push it. " This paper directly regards "geography" as a synonym for "administrative region", which can be said to be the most extreme understanding of the word "geography" in ancient times.
Because of this, in our tradition, geography has always been regarded as a vassal of history. On the one hand, works with the theme of geography often become special articles in historical works, such as geography in national history or local chronicles. On the other hand, such geography often has the nature of historical geography. Even if the style is not influenced by geographical records, the content often has a strong historical color. For example, taking waterway as the key link is an out-and-out geographical work, but in terms of content, it is also a complete historical work. Of course, it is also a literary masterpiece.
Supplement: Hanshu is the work of Ban Gu, a historian of Han Dynasty. The genre of Hanshu is biography and its content is dynastic history. Stylistically, one of the characteristics of Hanshu is the creation of geological records. Most of the later history books have a special category (geography), but some names are different. "Geography, founded by Ban Gu, takes the isolated administrative regions in the Western Han Dynasty as the main content, and records the mountains, rivers and other contents. Geology records the minerals in this county and the places where the iron officials, bronze officials, gold officials and salt officials who manage minerals are located, and also records the main rivers, lakes and seas in detail. This book is of great significance for studying the development of mineral resources in the Western Han Dynasty.