Zhao Rugua (1170–1228) was a customs inspector at the city of Quanzhou during the late Song dynasty who wrote a two-volume book called Zhufan Zhi (諸蕃志, or Chu-fan-chi, literally "Description of the Barbarous Peoples" or "Records of Foreign Peoples", "Gazetteer of Foreigners" ) around 1225 CE. The first volume is a catalog of foreign places, with a description of each place, customs of the local people, and trade goods produced. In this gazetteer

Gazetteer

A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory, an important reference for information about places and place names , used in conjunction with a map or a full atlas. It typically contains information concerning the geographical makeup of a country, region, or continent as well as the social...

, he described places such as the famed Lighthouse of Alexandria

Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, also known as the Pharos of Alexandria , was a tower built between 280 and 247 BC on the island of Pharos at Alexandria, Egypt...

. The second volume is a catalog of trade goods.

Many entries of Zhufan Zhi take information from an older work from 1178, Ling-wai-tai-ta by another geographer, Chou Ch’u-fei.