Changes In The Basic Divisions Of Shaoxing City (960-1938)

This paper selected Shaoxing City,a typical historical canal city in China southern watery region,as the research object to carry out a case study.It combed the process of the change of the local divisions in the urban area from the Song Dynasty to 1938,so as to understand the local adaptation from the theoretical institutions to the actual management of the local divisions and its internal influencing factors.In this paper,Conzen's analysis method was adopted.With the help of the big scale map,the documents of the Republic of China and the local chronicles,the land-masses and divisions were textual studied.Then on the basis of the reconstruction of Shaoxing City in the Republic of China,it would be possible to further trace the early urban morphology and division boundaries.In the first chapter,it collated the institutions,hierarchies and functions of the local management in Shaoxing City,restored the division boundaries in three periods,and revealed that after leaving the administrative system“Fang”(?)was still long-standing.In the second chapter,it traced the institutional origin of Fang,and found the system of“Fang Biao”(??)-“Fang Xiang”(??)-“Fang Qu”(??)in Ming and Qing Dynasties.In the third chapter,it found the system of“Fang Biao”–“Fang Xiang”-“Jie Qu”(??)in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.In conclusion,Fang was the core of the local divisions in Shaoxing City.The name of Fang and its boundary were long inherited due to the using habits,the continuation of documents and the delimiting standards of local divisions.The changes of local management systems and functional organizations were reflected in the changes of hierarchies and morphologies of “Fang”.In addition,as the special name of the division in the urban area,“Fang” still had the consistency with the division in the suburb in the actual management.