Study On The Historical Geography Of Dingqian In Modern Academic Perspective

Dingqian is a famous historical geographer in late Qing Dynasty, he made a great contribution on the northwest and the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty Historical Geography research, which is admired by later scholars. Penglai Xuan Geography Series is his most important writings. Not only the preserved biographical information about Dingqian is little,but also there is almost not have any study on himseif. This study utilizes a new version of Penglai Xuan Geography Series, which is printed in 1902, and a lot of new information which is found in Geography Magazine, solving many problems about Dingqian.The Northwest History research has become common practice, but to the 1920s,the academic paradigm suddenly changed to the method of Oriental Studies, and at the same time, Chinese geography gradually began its modernization process, the modern academic community and knowledge dissemination network had initial formation. In this intense changes era, the academic of Dingqian ties with modern Western scholarship has been seriously overestimated. His academic also has the obvious features that it is old, but ai the same time, it also is new. This feature typically reflects the widespread academic look of that era.