Shuowen Jiezi And Ancient Geography

Shuowen Jiezi written by Xu Shen in Dong Han Dynasty is the first dictionary in our country which analyzes the character pattern, explains the word's meaning and recognizes the sound. It is an immortal philology and work of the exegesis of ancient texts. This paper chooses the words whose meanings reflect the ancient geography, and then analyzes them. The paper includes three parts: the administrative regionalization, the terrain knowledge, and the economic geography. Then the paper analyzes each kind of geography words from the angle of the exegetics, and analyzes the words that Xu Shen interpreted. On the basis of explanation of the form of Chinese characters, the paper explains the relevant geography knowledge. At last the paper summarizes and evaluates the Shuo Wen and the ancient geography.