中国古地图起源探讨

关于中国地图如何起源的问题，在中国地图史研究的论文中还不多见，有关地图史的书籍中也很少论述，所以中国古地图起源问题已成为地图学史界一个悬而未决的问题。作者认为，原始社会已出现了描述自然现象的图画，而这些图画先于象形文字出现，尽管也有描述自然景物的图画，但还不是真正意义上的地图，只能算作地物画。夏末商初象形文字出现后，产生于原始社会的地物画与象形文字还没有明显的差别，于是形成了地物画与象形文字融为一体的地图发展阶段。周灭商后，由于生产和征战的需要，具有明显主题思想和实际使用价值的地图大量出现。

The Probe of the Most Primitive Maps in China

Where the maps originated in China is seldom reported in papers which researched map history of china as well as in books about map history. So the problem where most primitive maps originated in china has been one in the map history. The author suggested that the pictures described the natural phenomenon were developed in the most primitive society before hieroglyph appeared. Although there are many pictures described the natural scenery but they were not real maps. They were only consiedered as the feature pictures. When hieroglyph appeared in the Xia Dynasty and Shang Dynasty , there was no difference between the feature pictures originated from the most primitive society and hieroglyph. As a result, it was followed by the beginning of the embryonic maps of intergrated pictures with hieroglph. After the Zhou Dynasty replaced the Shang Dynasty ,maps with the clear theme and pratical value emerged quantitily in China in need of production and going on a campaign.