Study On The Geography Of Tobacco Industry In Sichuan From The Qing Dynasty To The Republic Of China

Historical agricultural geography, occupying an important position in the research of historical geography, mainly studies the spatial and temporal distribution of related crops in different periods of history. Sichuan is a big province in tobacco planting and production in China. As early as in the Republic of China, the planting scale and production of tobacco in Sichuan had ranged first in our country. As for the study of Sichuan tobacco, most scholars conducted from aspects of agriculture or economic history, while the systematic study of the whole tobacco industry is rare. Therefore, this paper, by collecting and sorting document literatures and taking advantage of the knowledge of historical geography and statistics, conducted an overall study on the spatial and temporal distribution of tobacco industry in Sichuan from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, trying to make up the aforementioned deficiency.This paper mainly develops from the following six aspects:It’s an introduction. It mainly expounds the academic and practical significance of this study, the current research status on tobacco at home and abroad, the demarcation of specific time and region, and the review of academic history on the planting, processing, transportation and sale etc. of Sichuan tobacco.In the first part, it mainly introduces the geographical conditions of Sichuan from such aspects as terrain, soil and climate, as well as the earliest introduction of tobacco to Sichuan.In the second part, namely the first section of the main body, it mainly discusses the planting distribution of tobaccos in Sichuan from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China and intuitively shows the distribution and changes of counties where tobaccos were planted in the form of geographical map.In the third part, it introduces the related conditions of tobacco processing in Sichuan from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. In the Qing Dynasty, smoking tobacco, cigar and snuff were mainly produced by handwork in manual workshops of which the distribution status is showed in related maps. During the Republic of China, the category of tobaccos changed and smoking tobacco, hand-rolled cigarettes and cigar were mainly produced; these tobacco products developed better on the base of development in Qing, with better quality and higher efficiency. In addition, the introduction of American flue-cured tobacco also contributed to the big change.In the fourth part, it mainly introduces the sales status of tobaccos. From the Qing to the Republic of China, sales markets and marketing routes of tobaccos varied widely. In the Qing Dynasty, tobaccos were mainly sold inside the province; while in the Republic of China, due to the improvement of transportation and changes in political situations, more tobaccos were sold to other provinces. Based on such situation, specific roadmap about the transportation and marketing was drawn.In the fifth part, it introduces the influence of tobaccos on such aspects as economy of Sichuan. The medical function, economic function and characteristic of body-and-mind delighting of tobaccos made the people have a larger demand for cigarettes. Through the development during the Qing and the Republic of China, Chengdu and Chongqing gradually became two large tobacco economic centers in Sichuan, which greatly accelerated the economic and social development of Sichuan.