The Urban Study Of Liao Dynasty From The Perspective Of Historical Geography

Liao Dynasty was built by Qidan people who lived in the north of ancient China. Before the establishement of dynasty, the people had immagrated with grassland and water sources. The nomandic lifesstyle decided that they couldn’t build cities; and morever they in fact didn’t need cities. Before the dynasty built-up, the central plain was under the cover of riots and dangers and so many people from the cenral plain escaped into pastoral areas. Qidan people on the terms of the opportunity attacked the central plain, captiving more Han people in grassland areas. In oder to arrange these captivities, the rulers from Qidan followed suits of the cities in central plain to build their cities in the heartland area( Shangjing Dao and Zhongjing Dao). Than Qidan people destoryed Bohai State in the northeast and occupied the entrie notheast area. In the consequence, Qidan people got 16 districts of Yanyun for helping Shijingtang become a king. As a reslut, the admistrative areas of Liao Dynasty was multiplied and so did cities in the dynasty. After several generations’efforts, the city system in the dynasty had been formed up to the king of Shengzong(983-1031).The adminatrative areas in Liao Dynasty were divided into five areas which was called Wudao. In the five, Shangjing and Zhongjing were heartland and in these areas the cities were bascially newly-buuilt. People living there were immigrates. In Dongjing Dao, some cities were newly built and some inherited Bohai’s and Gaoli’s cities. In Nanjing and Xijing, cities had the common character of inheriting the central plain’s ones. The above forms of cities constituted the mainbody of cities in Liao Dynasty. On the conditions of nature and geography, and different historical background, these cities by Qidan people had uniqueness in archetect and type. The dissertation is composed of three parts:The frist part functions as introduction, which demotrates the purpose and significance of the choice topic meanwhile summarizes present scholaristic achivements in the field. The part also shows the writing methods used , the focus in the article , the difficulties and the innovaitons. The second part is mainbody. It is divided into six chapters. The first chapter generalizes the natural and geographical characteristics, which build a foundation for the later analysis of cities’s distribution and features. The following chapters from the second to the fourth classify the entire areas in Liao into the heatland , the first-in area and the last-in one. These chapters also analyzes the process of moving–in and administration, and the cities’spatial distribution and human resource. The fifth chapter sorts out the cities, Four types of cities in Liao are made as capital cities, cities with Qidan’s feature, common cities and frontier cities. The chapter probes into not only cities’characters but also their funtions. Cities in Liao Dynasty, especially ones newly built in grassland are characterized with Qidan culture though they are under the influence of the central plain cities and Han people. All related are illustraed in the sixth chapter. The third part makes a conclusion. It demostates the significance of cities in Liao Dynasty. The grassland area in the north of the Great Wall was a happy land for nomadic peoples and it hadn’t cities. However, after the establishment of Qidan ruling, there were a quantity of cities sringing up in the north, which is unparalleled in the area. Hence, thees cities have supernamal significance in the combination of peoples economically, politically and culturally.