Han Dynasty Central Plains Urban Studies

In the Han Dynasty, in politics, the parallel system of counties and the kingdom was implemented, the economy was thriving. The cities in the central plain obtained the rapid development by its superior geographical position. But because Han Dynasty's imbalanced economy development caused the urban development to present imbalanced characteristic. Generally speaking, in the city distribution, the south was dense, while the north was scattered. And this distribution also had influence on present situation. In this paper, based on historical records and many archaeological excavations reports, some cities of the Han Dynasty in the Central Plains region will be given a brief introduction. The main contents of the article can be divided into four parts:Part I: from aspects of the Central Plains region geographical situation in the primitive society, in Central Plains region, the first city site is Zhengzhou Xishan sites. This finding can prove that city's emergence of the Central Plains region can be dated back to the end of primitive society, or the early period of Xia dynasty. And in this part, the city's general distribution and development will be given, From the primitive society on the Qin Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn, all these has laid a foundation for city's development of Han Dynasty.Part II: in this part, a detailed description of a overall situation of urban development in Han Dynasty and regional development will be introduced. the city development in Central Plains region was not balanced, the cities along the Yellow River was distributed more intensive, particularly in areas of Henan, Liang Song district, Hanoi region, Nanyang, Yingchuan areas, Zhengwei, in these areas, there were most cities, with fastest development, large-scale, and more prosperous economy.Part III: in the Han Dynasty, the cities in the Central Plains region had something in common with other cities in other regions, they all were set up surrounded by the rivers or the mountains, the cities mostly took on square or rectangular shape, there were some irregular shaped cities because of their local geographical conditions. The cities had various scales and different special layouts, but all city walls were rammed with loess.Part IV: the development of the city is subjected to a number of factors, the convenient transport and prosperous economy would prompt the development of the city, but a number of natural factors and human factors at different levels will damage the city built by rammed earth to a certain extent, and hinder the development of the city.