On The Exploration In The Western Regions At The End Of 19th Century And In The Early 20th Century

The explorations rushed in the Western Regions at the end of 19th century and in the early 20 th century were of significance in the world history. Influenced by the political, economic and cultural background, the archaeologists, mountain-climbers, zoologists, botanists, anthropologists, monks, geographers, journalists and travelers from different countries came to the Western Regions to investigate and explore with different purposes. With the change of the circumstances at home and abroad, the purposes for exploring have been changed. And in the end, the academic investigation became the prior purpose .These foreign exploring parties came to explorations in the west of China. Whether what they did was to be praised or to be blamed, however, it should be acknowledged that they had left tremendous investigation reports, faithful records of explorations, reading notes and pictures about the history, nationality, religion and geography . Viewed from the point of historical materialism, their explorations, to a certain degree, promoted the development of Chinese academic study, promoted the cultural communication between China and the West, and facilitated the outcoming of the international study on the orient-the study on the Dunhuang. This thesis discussed briefly the processes, reasons and significance of the explorations in the Western Regions and gave a historical overview of the current communication between China and other countries, and it was favorable the opening-up and reform in China.