On The Study Of Bamboo And Wooden Slip Documents From Western Han Dynasty For Administrative Geography In The Past Three Decades

Over the last three decades,the increasingly discovered bamboo and wooden slip documents from Western Han Dynasty provided additional information for the studies on the administrative geography.Lots of journal articles were published in the field at the same time and they gave us more understanding on the details of country's administrative divisions.However,there are insufficient analysis on the merits and demerits of investigation results.Not much systematic study covered above topics.This dissertation aims to consolidate and summarize the past three-decade findings based on the information of the geographical names mentioned in the bamboo and wooden slips for future study.This dissertation consists of introduction part and four chapters for the main content.In the introduction,the unearthed Western Han bamboo slips documents and their details of writings and years are firstly presented.The current research status of Western Han Dynasty administrative geography is also introduced.In the latter part of introduction,the motivation of writing and significance of this article would be further explained.Subsequently,there are four chapters in total.The first chapter starts from the study on the Han prefectures based on bamboo and wooden slip from Western Han Dynasty.It provides analysis of past results from three aspects.They are the change of administrative district,the time of abandoned prefectures and their boundary.The second chapter is about the Han counties,state and ethnic autonomous regions.In the Han counties part,it summarizes the findings from others to interpret the locations and changes of Han counties.For the Han state and ethnic autonomous regions,combined with the others' investigations,the explanations are given from their number and distribution shown on the bamboo and wooden slips.The third chapter consists of the Han kingdoms and principalities.The border of the country and the change of administrative district are discussed in the part of Han kingdoms.Furthermore,in the principalities part,the discussion is focused on their regionalization and enclave with the latest findings.On the whole,bamboo and wooden slip documents from Western Han Dynasty provides essential information on above classifications.Among aforementioned six administrative systems,the research on Han prefectures,counties and principalities are always the focus in the field.The final chapter is a reflection of studying administrative district via the Western Han bamboo and wooden slips materials.It raises the problems needed to be aware in the previous studies.Although such documents pave a pathway for the research on the administrative geography,some mistakes were made in the meantime.In no doubt,it gives the warning signal to us for continuous study here.This work identifies the importance of interpretation,regularity of arrangement in the place names,as well as the same name but different place or the same place but different names,when we study this topic through bamboo and wooden slip documents.It is hope that this thesis can provide insights and have an essential role for the future study in this area.