1, physical geography
River 1252, including main stream, tributaries, valley width, riverbed depth, seasonal variation of water quantity and water level, sediment concentration, ice age, and undercurrents, waterfalls, rapids, beaches and lakes passing along the river, are widely collected and recorded in detail.
2. Human geography
Some recorded administrative regions can often supplement the lack of official geographical records. There are * * * 2,800 county-level cities and other cities, 180 ancient capitals. In addition, settlements smaller than cities include 10, including towns, towns, pavilions, towns, villages, markets, garrisons, docks, castles, etc., about 1000.
3. Subject information
In addition to rich geographical content, there are many subject matter materials. For example, there are about 20,000 place names recorded in the book, of which more than 2,400 are explained. There are more than 30 ancient pagodas, 20 palaces 120, 260 tombs, 26 temples and many gardens at home and abroad. It can be seen that the book has certain reference value to history, archaeology, toponymy, water conservancy history, ethnology, religion, art and so on.
Li Daoyuan collected a large number of documents for writing this book, including 437 kinds of books, about 350 kinds of inscriptions in Han and Wei dynasties, and many folk songs, proverbs, dialects, legends and stories. , and made a serious analysis and study of all kinds of information obtained, personally conducted field visits, searched for historical sites, traced back to the source, and adopted a scientific attitude of seeking truth from facts. This book is actually a summary of the ancient geography of China before the Northern Wei Dynasty. Many valuable materials in the book have long been lost, and many people can edit or revise some ancient books from them.
The water mirror annotation is named after the water mirror annotation. The book Water Mirror is about 10,000 words, and the Notes on Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty says that it "draws water from the world, 137". Water Mirror Notes looks like water mirror notes, but in fact, it takes water mirror as the key link and records more than 1000 rivers and related historical sites, stories, myths and legends in detail. It is the most comprehensive and systematic comprehensive geographical work in ancient China.
The book also records a large number of stone tablet ink and fishing songs and folk songs, with gorgeous words and beautiful language, which has high literary value. Because most of the documents cited in the book have been lost, Zhu has preserved a lot of materials, which is of great reference value for studying the ancient history and geography of China.
Refer to Baidu Encyclopedia-Notes on Water Classics