A Study On The Town Of Minjiang Estuary In Ming And Qing Dynasties

This paper focuses on the cities along the Mingjiang River, which are now located north from Lianjiang and South to Fuqing including seven cities and counties, such as Fuzhou city and Changle counties, in order to do a more comprehensive, systematic and in-depth research about this area during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, especially in Tao-kuang(1638-1840).Through the rising and development of those towns which were influenced by Physical Geography (topography, climate, natural disasters) and Historical Geography (population, socio-economic, transportation), we can conclude that during the Ming and Qing Dynasty, the economic development of Southeast region and even the whole country provided basis for the development of cities along the Mingjiang River. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, these cities got the preliminary development, then prospered in MingQing Dynasty, which had some obvious characteristics, for example, those cities were mainly distributed in the main traffic hub areas and most of them emerged as the "Cities"and"towns ". At the same time, we could also see that in these distant cities where the official forces were hard to reach, the local gentry forces played an important part in the municipal management.Researching on the cities which were belong to the Ming and Qing Dynasties along the Mingjiang River not only helps us to understand the development history and the law of the towns, but also does good to the development and protection of today's small towns.