Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
This is a very interesting question, which has long attracted the attention of both
Chinese and foreign geographers. There was scholarly guessing as to the reasons
why this spot was chosen and all these can be ignored because we are now fortunate
enough to have access to new source material unearthed recently.
Here I cannot but refer to a world-famous scholar who is well-known to the older
generation of Canadian geographers. He is none other than Professor Griffi th Taylor,
who was engaged in teaching at Toronto University for some time.
Before he came to Canada, Professor Taylor had taught at Chicago University for
a period of time. And he was elected President of the Association of American
Geographers in 1941. In his presidential address delivered to the Association of
American Geographers, Professor Taylor talked about the selection of the earlier
site of the city of Beijing, on the basis of the result of his personal on-the-spot inves-
tigations and research in Beijing. The main content of his presidential address made
to the Association of American Geographers was included into a topic written by
him, which was entitled
Urban Geography
, one of his topics dealing with the study
of site, evolution, pattern and classifi cation in villages, towns and cities. He devoted
several pages to the discussion of the geography of Beijing and paid special atten-
tion to the study of the origin and evolution of the city.
On page 26 of the topic (2nd ed., 5th imp., 1968), he says,
Pekin offers a fair example of a large city which has developed under temperate conditions
in a gigantic plain… It is diffi cult to point to any environmental factor which has led to
Pekin's dominance over most of the towns in the deltaic deposits of the Huang-ho…. One
would have expected the chief northern city to have developed either in the centre of the
plain, or near the main river, or possibly at a good harbour on the coast. Pekin fulfi ls none
of these conditions.
In the following two pages, he raised his point of view:
It seems clear that a considerable 'human' element is involved in the choice of the site of
Pekin. In early days necromancers ascribed to the site a peculiarly fortunate character….
The magical and political factors (briefl y referred to earlier) led to the city's birth perhaps
as far back as 723 B.C. At this time 'Chi' was the capital of Yen Kingdom according to the
Encyclopaedia Sinica
. Given this start, no other city seems to have arisen to compete with
it. (pp. 27, 28)
Finally, he came to the conclusion:
It must be admitted that the choice of the site of Pekin is not due to any marked environmen-
tal factors… We may perhaps grant that Pekin—situated in a vast region of uniform envi-
ronment—is a good example to suggest that the possibility theory does, under such
conditions, explain the facts of geographical distribution. (p. 29)
Forty years have since passed. Over this period, especially since the founding of
the People's Republic of China, there have frequently been new archaeological fi nds
and new results in scientifi c research, which are of great help to the study of the
original site of the city of Beijing. It is a pity that Professor Taylor, a scholar so
enthusiastic about the study of the geography of the city of Beijing had passed away
before he could personally read these new materials. It would be unfair if we should
make a criticism of some of Professor Taylor's theses by basing ourselves on the
