This paper provides an analysis of a specific genre of national gazetteers in medieval China, and discusses how it was created for bureaucratic purposes during the third to twelfth centuries. It explores a structural transformation of those national gazetteers from official archives primarily recorded in the third year of Taikang (282) to public publications that reached their peak but faded away soon with the collapse of the Northern Song dynasty in 1127. While there are obvious differences in geographical documents between Medieval China and the Roman Empire, the goal is to underscore the shared characteristics that appear to be universal within a comparative analytical framework. Despite originating from different cultural traditions, both sets of gazetteers were dedicated to serve similar political formations characterized by centralized bureaucracies controlling vast territories and populations.

Since the Qin and Han dynasties, governors have required counties and states to submit regular statistical documents containing geographical information. This practice led to the inclusion of a specific chapter on geography in History of Han (汉书). A wide range of genres concerning places emerged in the subsequent dynasties, the specific genre under examination in this paper stands out from others in its initiatives, compilers, thematic inclinations, and writing style. Unlike those contemporaneous privately compiled national gazetteers, which spanned hundreds or even thousands of volumes and meticulously detailed regional geographical records of customs, miracles, landscapes, relics, local worthies, and folk religions, the genre of interest here constituted a government-sponsored endeavor, typically encompassing fewer than 20 volumes and motivated by central power and authority. Constrained by its limited scale, the records of regions were curated with the primary objective of facilitating governance over the entirety of the territories, rather than prioritizing local concerns. Notably, its clarity and conciseness set it apart from the Uniform National Gazetteers (一统志) of the following Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.

The transformation of this enduring genre can be divided into two distinct stages. During the early Pre-Sui period (280-589), geographical records were typically titled after the reigning year, such as the Geographical Record of Taikang (太康地志). Although none of these national gazetteers survived into later centuries, fragments can be found in works such as the History of Song (宋书) and the History of Southern Qi (南齐书). Subsequently, these gazetteers gradually developed into standardization, regularization, and institutionalization. They were supplemented and rewritten constantly from the Tang to Song dynasties, known respectively as the Geographical Records of Ten Districts (十道图) during the Tang, Five Dynasties and early Song periods, and the Geographical Records of Nine Regions (九域图) in the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty, also identified by reign titles as their precedents. In the late Song period, the central court appointed professional officials and established a specialized institute to complete frequent compilation tasks. However, the institute was unable to achieve anything due to a devastating war. Two lengthy excerpts from the Tang dynasty have been brought back to life through Dunhuang manuscripts, respectively from the period of Tianbao (天宝742-756) and Zhenyuan (贞元785-805). The most well-preserved national gazetteer is the one completed in the third year of Yuanfeng (1080), which serves as a model for what the specific genre of national gazetteers should be like. The survival of these three documents is not simply due to their relatively later period, but their circulation as public writings rather than in archives in the period before the Sui dynasty. Encyclopedias witnessed the transmission of geographical knowledge from the court to the public, providing insight into lost writings through citations.

While the aforementioned genre is typically brief, it is more than a mere gazetteer of places. All the contents were selected from original documents, edited, and rearranged to fulfill the needs of the emperor and officials. From the Western Jin dynasty to the Northern Song dynasty, the way of disseminating and preserving national gazetteers changed, yet their fundamental purpose persisted, and the categories of content remained consistent. According to historical records of compilations, national gazetteers underwent several revisions due to changes in the establishment and abolition of prefectures, alterations in the rank of regions, and fluctuations in population. In general, they demonstrated the administrative division system and regional hierarchy patterns of their dynasties. According to their name 'tu' (maps), they were likely not only textual documents but provided attached maps as well. Key data and information, such as population, geographical directions, administrative ranks, financial resources, taxation, tribute, and especially, the measured distances to capitals, served to visualize central power and order within spatial descriptions. With the recording of basic regional information, they contributed to the coordination between local prefectures and the central government, including selection and appointment of local officials, determination of official salaries and staffing levels, and allocation of national administrative resources.

This paper doesn't aim to compare every detail of geographical documents from Medieval China and the Roman Empire. Instead, it focuses on their administrative aspects. Both societies produced similar geographical documents to support bureaucracy, like Notitia Dignitatum and Itineraries in the Roman Empire. The former included bureaucratic maps showing officials and the latter described distances, stages, road standards, and geographical features, presented in the form of written itineraries or itinerary maps. Strabo's Geography is another example, where he gathered information from various sources to explain the present world with historical events and link places to the center, catering to politicians and military leaders. As discussed, both societies' textual records and maps related to administration, routes, and historic events exhibit striking similarities in form and principle, which were primarily crafted for administrative and military purposes. For centralized authoritarian governments, the utilization of textual geographical documents and maps represents a widespread and effective administrative technique. By discussing the similar roles of geographical documents, we may better understand the different interactions of central authority and local communities in each context.