The term Nine Provinces or Nine Regions (), is used in ancient Chinese histories to refer to territorial divisions or islands during the Xia and Shang dynasties and has now come to symbolically represent China. "Province" is the word used to translate '' zhou'' (州) – since before the

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 ...

(618–907 CE), it was the largest Chinese territorial division. Although the current definition of the Nine Provinces can be dated to the Spring and Autumn and

Warring States The Warring States period in Chinese history (221 BC) comprises the final two and a half centuries of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC), which were characterized by frequent warfare, bureaucratic and military reforms, and struggles for gre ...

periods, it was not until the

Eastern 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 ...

that the Nine Provinces were treated as actual administrative regions.

Different interpretations of the Nine Provinces

The '' Rongcheng Shi''

bamboo slips Bamboo and wooden strips ( zh, s=简牍, t=簡牘, first=t, p=jiǎndú) are long, narrow strips of wood or bamboo, each typically holding a single column of several dozen brush-written characters. They were the main media for writing documents ...

from the Chu state has the earliest interpretation of the Nine Provinces, but these early descriptions differ widely from the currently recognized Nine Provinces. The Nine Provinces, according to the ''Rongcheng Shi'', are Tu (涂), Jia (夾), Zhang (竞), Ju (莒), Ou (藕), Jing (荊), Yang (陽), Xu (敘) and Cuo (虘). The most prevalent account of the Nine Provinces comes from the ''

Yu Gong The ''Yu Gong'' or ''Tribute of Yu'' is a chapter of the ''Book of Xia'' ( Chinese: ''Xià Shū'') section of the ''Book of Documents'', one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature. The chapter describes the legendary Yu the Great ...

'' or ''Tribute of Yu'' section of the ''Book of Xia'' (夏書), collected in the ''

Book of Documents The ''Book of Documents'' ( zh, p=Shūjīng, c=書經, w=Shu King) or the ''Classic of History'', is one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature. It is a collection of rhetorical prose attributed to figures of ancient China, a ...

''. It was therein recorded that

Yu the Great Yu the Great or Yu the Engineer was a legendary king in ancient China who was credited with "the first successful state efforts at flood control", his establishment of the Xia dynasty, which inaugurated Dynasties in Chinese history, dynastic ru ...

divided the world into the nine provinces of Ji (冀), Yan (兗),

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

(青), Xu (徐),

Yang Yang may refer to: * Yang, in yin and yang, one half of the two symbolic polarities in Chinese philosophy * Korean yang, former unit of currency of Korea from 1892 to 1902 * YANG, a data modeling language for the NETCONF network configuration p ...

(揚), Jing (荊), Yu (豫), Liang (梁) and Yong (雍). The geography section (釋地) of the ancient ''

Erya The ''Erya'' or ''Erh-ya'' is the first surviving Chinese dictionary. The sinologist Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from the 3rd century BC." Title Chinese scholars interpret the firs ...

'' encyclopedia also cites nine provinces, but with

You In Modern English, the word "''you''" is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers. History ''You'' comes from ...

and

Ying Ying may refer to: People * Yíng (嬴), a Chinese surname, the ancestral name of Qin Shi Huang, first Emperor of China in the Qin dynasty, and some contemporary rival royal families such as the Zhaos * Yīng (应), a Chinese surname from the Z ...

(營) listed instead of Qing and Liang. In the "Clan Responsibilities" (職方氏) section of ''

Rituals of Zhou The ''Rites of Zhou'' (), originally known as "Officers of Zhou" (), is a Chinese work on bureaucracy and organizational theory. It was renamed by Liu Xin to differentiate it from a chapter in the '' Book of History'' by the same name. To rep ...

'', the provinces include You and

Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...

but not Xu and Liang. The ''

Lüshi Chunqiu The ''Lüshi Chunqiu'' (), also known in English as ''Master Lü's Spring and Autumn Annals'', is an encyclopedic Chinese classic text compiled around 239BC under the patronage of late pre-imperial Qin Chancellor Lü Buwei. In the evaluati ...

'' "Initial Survey" (有始覽) section mentions You but not Liang. Traditionally, the ''Book of Documents'' is thought to depict the divisions during the Xia dynasty, the ''Erya'' those of the Shang dynasty; the ''Rituals of Zhou'' the

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military ...

and the ''Lüshi Chunqiu'' the concept and actual territorial distribution of the Nine Provinces during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The ''Lüshi Chunqiu'' contains the following passage on the location of the nine provinces and their general correspondence with the states of the time: The words "Nine Provinces" do not appear in any ancient

oracle bone Oracle bones are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron which were used in pyromancya form of divinationduring the Late Shang period () in ancient China. '' Scapulimancy'' is the specific term if ox scapulae were used for the divination, ''p ...

inscriptions, such that many scholars do not think Yu the Great created the Nine Provinces as was traditionally thought. Some suggest the name "Jiuzhou", which came to mean "Nine Provinces", was actually a place, or the divisions were within

Shandong Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural ...

. Later on,

Zou Yan Zou Yan (; 305 BC240 BC) was a Chinese philosopher and spiritual writer of the Warring States era, Warring States-era. He was best known as the representative thinker of the Yin and Yang School (or School of Naturalists) during the Hundred School ...

, an adherent of the

Taoist Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ...

Yin and Yang School (陰陽家), proposed a new theory of the "Greater Nine Provinces" (大九州). According to him, the nine provinces in the ''Book of Documents'' were only "minor" provinces, which combined to form the "Red County / Divine Province" (赤縣神州), i.e. China (cf. Shenzhou). Nine such provinces then form another "medium" nine provinces surrounded by a sea. There are nine such medium provinces, which were surrounded by a Great Ocean, forming the Greater Nine Provinces. The Nine Provinces' names in the "Geographical Instruction" section (地形訓) of ''

Huainanzi The ''Huainanzi'' is an ancient Chinese text made up of essays from scholarly debates held at the court of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, before 139 BCE. Compiled as a handbook for an enlightened sovereign and his court, the work attempts to defi ...

'', annotations to

Zhang Heng Zhang Heng (; AD 78–139), formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized Chang Heng, was a Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman who lived during the Han dynasty#Eastern Han (25–220 AD), Eastern Han dynasty. Educated in the capital citi ...

's biography (張衡傳注) in ''

Book of the Later Han The ''Book of the Later Han'', also known as the ''History of the Later Han'' and by its Chinese name ''Hou Hanshu'' (), is one of the Twenty-Four Histories and covers the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE, a period known as the Lat ...

'' and volume eight of the '' Chuxue Annals'' (初學記), are different from the traditional ones listed above. They all include Shenzhou, which led some scholars to suggest they are the names of the Greater Nine Provinces. According to the "Forms of Earth" (墜形訓) section of the ''Huainanzi'', outside the Greater Nine Provinces are the Eight Yin (八殥), the Eight Hong (八紘) and the Eight Ji (八極). According to the '' Genealogical Descent of the Emperors'' (帝王世紀), rulers before

Shennong Shennong ( zh, c=神農, p=Shénnóng), variously translated as "Divine Farmer" or "Divine Husbandman", born , was a mythological Chinese ruler known as the first Yan Emperor who has become a deity in Chinese and Vietnamese folk religion. H ...

had influence over the Greater Nine Provinces, but those from the

Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch, or Huangdi ( zh, t=黃帝, s=黄帝, first=t) in Chinese, is a mythical Chinese sovereign and culture hero included among the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. He is revered as ...

onwards did not extend their virtue that far. The Greater Nine Provinces theory was based on the knowledge in the states of Yan and Qi on the

Yellow Sea The Yellow Sea, also known as the North Sea, is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula, and can be considered the northwestern part of the East China Sea. Names It is one of four ...

coast that China comprised only 1/81 of the entire world, markedly different from the Sinocentric point of view that was prevalent at the time. Geographic knowledge from increasing contact between the

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 ...

(206 BCE – 220 CE) and its neighbours proved the theory false and it lost popularity. By the time of the

Three Kingdoms The Three Kingdoms of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu dominated China from AD 220 to 280 following the end of the Han dynasty. This period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and followed by the Jin dynasty (266–420), Western Jin dyna ...

period (220–280 CE) the Nine Provinces had expanded into thirteen provinces together with a central administrative region.New Research on the Han State System (两汉州制新考)

References

{{Ancient Chinese provinces Names of China Chinese words and phrases Provinces of ancient China Historical geography of China

Different interpretations of the Nine Provinces

See also

References