中国古代政治地理思想探究

中国古代具有丰富的政治地理思想和实践,对当前中国政治地理学的建设具有重要意义。本文对中国从先秦至晚清的相关文献中涉及政治地理的内容进行梳理,归纳为地利(定都、设镇)、地政(治地、安民)、地缘(安边、攘夷)三大主题,对各主题的要点进行了整理,进而探讨了这些思想与西方政治地理学相关概念的关联,并期望未来中国政治地理学对于本国的传统思想给予更多关注。

An overview of political geographical thoughts in ancient China

There are rich political geographical arguments and practices in ancient China, which are of great significance to the development of contemporary Chinese political geography. However, neither political geographers nor historians had summarized the historical political geographical thoughts and their implications for the development of modern political geography in China. To help narrow this gap, the current article briefly reviews a large body of historical works and records from the pre-Qin period to the late Qing dynasty from the perspective of modern political geography. The contents are classified into three topics: territorial advantages (mainly including siting of capital and establishment of towns with important military functions), geographical administration (mainly including maintaining the central control over local places, and governing the land and the people), and geopolitical relations (mainly including securing the borderland and defeat the surrounding barbarous nations). The article summarizes the key points of each topic and discusses the similarity and difference between Chinese historical political geographical thoughts and related concepts and theories in Western political geography. We hope that future political geographical research will pay more attention to the traditional wisdom and thoughts in ancient China, as well as to supplement and refine the framework and findings proposed in this article.