Shui Jing Zhu
Encyclopedia
Shui Jing Zhu is a work on the ancient geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

 of China. It is an annotated and much expanded version of an older text, the Shui Jing ("Waterways Classic"), which has been lost.
The annotated version was compiled by Li Daoyuan
Li Daoyuan
Li Daoyuan was a Chinese geographer during thetimes of the Northern Wei Dynasty. He is known as the author ofthe Commentary to the River Classic ....

 (酈道元; d. 527) during the Northern Wei Dynasty, hugely expanding on the original.

The original version of the Waterways Classic, describing 137 different rivers in China, was traditionally believed to have been compiled by Sang Qin (桑欽) in the Han dynasty. Qing dynasty scholars gave it a later date, the Three Kingdoms
Three Kingdoms
The Three Kingdoms period was a period in Chinese history, part of an era of disunity called the "Six Dynasties" following immediately the loss of de facto power of the Han Dynasty rulers. In a strict academic sense it refers to the period between the foundation of the state of Wei in 220 and the...

 period, because of the names of the counties and commanderies. Its authorship is attributed to Jin Dynasty
Jìn Dynasty (265-420)
The Jìn Dynasty , was a dynasty in Chinese history, lasting between the years 265 and 420 AD. There are two main divisions in the history of the Dynasty, the first being Western Jin and the second Eastern Jin...

 scholar Guo Pu
Guo Pu
Guo Pu , courtesy name Jingchun , born in Yuncheng, Shanxi, was a Chinese writer.-Biography:Guo Pu was a Taoist mystic, geomancer, collector of strange tales, editor of old texts, and erudite commentator...

(郭璞), with later commentary by Li Daoyuan; only Li's commentary is known to survive. Li Daoyuan's 40-volume, 300,000-word version includes 1252 rivers.

The work describes and maps the waterways of ancient China. The book is divided into sections by river, each described with its source, course, and major tributaries, with not just geographical but also cultural and historical information.

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