Hongnong Commandery ( zh, 弘農郡), also known as Hengnong Commandery ( zh, 恒農郡), was a

commandery In the Middle Ages, a commandery (rarely commandry) was the smallest administrative division of the European landed properties of a military order. It was also the name of the house where the knights of the commandery lived.Anthony Luttrell and G ...

of China from

Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

, located in modern western

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

and southeastern

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

. Hongnong was established in 113 BC. The seat was Hongnong county, near the strategic

Hangu Pass Hangu Pass or Hanguguan was a fortified gateway that commanded the strategic mountain pass between the Yellow River and Qinling Mountains, forming the main choke point on the only land corridor between the Central Plain and the Guanzhong reg ...

. It administered 11 counties: Hongnong (弘農), Lushi (盧氏), Shan (陝),

Yiyang Yiyang ( zh, s=益阳 , t=益陽 , p=Yìyáng) is a prefecture-level city on the Zi River in Hunan province, China, straddling Lake Dongting and bordering Hubei to the north. According to the Sixth National Population Census of the People's Repub ...

(宜陽), Mianchi (黽池), Danshui (丹水), Xin'an (新安),

Shang The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou dyn ...

(商), Xi (析), Luhun (陸渾),

Shangluo Shangluo ( zh, s= , p=Shāngluò) is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Shaanxi province, People's Republic of China, bordering Henan to the northeast and Hubei to the southeast. Part of the Shannan region of the province, it is located in t ...

(上雒). The population was 475,954 in 2 AD, in 118,091 households. In 39 AD, Hu (湖) and

Huayin Huayin is a county-level city in Weinan, Shaanxi province, China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of count ...

(華陰) counties were added, while Shang and Shangluo became part of

Jingzhao Jingzhao ( zh, 京兆) was a historical region centered on the ancient Chinese capital of Chang'an. Han dynasty In early Han dynasty, the governor of the capital Chang'an and its vicinities was known as ''You Neishi'' (), and the region was also ...

. The commandery had 46,815 households and a population of 199,113 in 140 AD. Hongnong became much smaller from

Jin dynasty Jin may refer to: States Jìn 晉 * Jin (Chinese state) (晉國), major state of the Zhou dynasty, existing from the 11th century BC to 376 BC * Jin dynasty (266–420) (晉朝), also known as Liang Jin and Sima Jin * Jin (Later Tang precursor) ...

to its dissolution in early

Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty ( ) was a short-lived Dynasties of China, Chinese imperial dynasty that ruled from 581 to 618. The re-unification of China proper under the Sui brought the Northern and Southern dynasties era to a close, ending a prolonged peri ...

as new commanderies were created. In 607, Guo Prefecture (虢州, modern Lingbao, Henan) was renamed Hongnong Commandery. In 617, Shan Commandery was formed from the northern part of Hongnong. In

, Hongnong Commandery became an alternative name of Guo. In 742, the prefecture had 6 counties and 88,845 people in 28,249 households.''

New Book of Tang The ''New Book of Tang'', generally translated as the "New History of the Tang" or "New Tang History", is a work of official history covering the Tang dynasty in ten volumes and 225 chapters. The work was compiled by a team of scholars of the So ...

'', Chapter 38.

References

{{Han dynasty provinces Commanderies of the Han dynasty Commanderies of the Jin dynasty (266–420) Commanderies of the Sui dynasty Commanderies of the Northern dynasties