The Four Seas () were four bodies of water that metaphorically made up the boundaries of ancient China. There is a sea for each for the four

cardinal directions The four cardinal directions, or cardinal points, are the four main compass directions: north, east, south, and west, commonly denoted by their initials N, E, S, and W respectively. Relative to north, the directions east, south, and west are at ...

. The West Sea is

Qinghai Lake Qinghai Lake or Ch'inghai Lake, also known by other names, is the largest lake in China. Located in an endorheic basin in Qinghai Province, to which it gave its name, Qinghai Lake is classified as an alkaline salt lake. The lake has fluctuate ...

, the East Sea is the East China Sea, the North Sea is Lake Baikal, and the South Sea is the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phi ...

. Two of the seas were symbolic until they were tied to genuine locations during the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

's wars with the Xiongnu. The lands "within the Four Seas", a literary name for China, are alluded to in Chinese literature and

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

History

The original Four Seas were a metaphor for the borders of pre-

China. Only two of the Four Seas were tied to real locations, the East Sea with the East China Sea and the South Sea with the

. During the

, wars with the Xiongnu brought them north to Lake Baikal. They recorded that the lake was a "huge sea" (hanhai) and designated it the mythical North Sea. They also encountered

, which they called the West Sea, and the lakes Lop Nur and Bostang in

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

. The Han dynasty expanded beyond the traditional West Sea and reached

Lake Balkhash Lake Balkhash ( kk, Балқаш көлі, ''Balqaş kóli'', ; russian: озеро Балхаш, ozero Balkhash) is a lake in southeastern Kazakhstan, one of the largest lakes in Asia and the 15th largest in the world. It is located in the ea ...

, the westernmost boundary of the empire and the new West Sea of the dynasty. Expeditions were sent to explore the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...

, but went no further. Chinese writers and artists often alluded to the Four Seas.

Jia Yi Jia Yi (; c. 200169 BCE) was a Chinese essayist, poet and politician of the Western Han dynasty, best known as one of the earliest known writers of ''fu'' rhapsody and for his essay "Disquisition Finding Fault with Qin" (''Guò Qín Lùn'' ), w ...

, in an essay that summarized the collapse of

Qin dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ; zh, c=秦朝, p=Qín cháo, w=), or Ch'in dynasty in Wade–Giles romanization ( zh, c=, p=, w=Ch'in ch'ao), was the first dynasty of Imperial China. Named for its heartland in Qin state (modern Gansu and Shaanxi), ...

, wrote that while the state of Qin has succeeded in "pocketing all within the Four Seas, and swallowing up everything in all Eight Directions", its ruler "lacked humaneness and rightness; because preserving power differs fundamentally from seizing power". The metaphor is also referenced in the Chinese adage "we are all brothers of the Four Seas", a proverb with utopian undercurrents. The lyrics of a popular Han dynasty folk song extol that "within the Four Seas, we are all brothers, and none be taken as strangers!"

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* * {{Portal bar, China, History Seas Asia in mythology Chinese literature History of China Literary terminology Names of China Seas Locations in Chinese mythology

History

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