The Rise of Civilization in China with Reference to Its Geographical Aspects

In the diffusion of culture the lay of the land has played a prime part. Generally speaking, China proper has a rugged relief, only about ten per cent of its surface, mainly in the north, being occupied by plains. In primeval times unbroken forest united the Yangtze basin with the Himalayan and Indo-Chinese regions, while the faunal evidence shows that continuous strips of woodland must have extended across northern China right up to Manchuria.1 The loess soil, however, filling the valleys of the northwestern uplands and extending far eastward across the Great Plain 2 discouraged a heavy tree growth; hence these areas, like similar ones in Central Europe and elsewhere, included great tracts of open grassland. A fact of preeminent significance to the cultural advancement of ancient China was the existence of a Eurasian steppe zone opposing no transverse barriers to the free eastward flow of stimuli from the far older culture lands of the West. Likewise important was the presence in northern China of a fertile and comparatively open lowland region of temperate climate, well fitted to become the seat of a high civilization

Ancient history · Archaeology · China · Civilization · Geography · Political science · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology · Remote Sensing and Land Use

• Carl Whiting Bishop 1881-1942

  C Martin Wilbur•The Journal of Asian Studies•1943

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