The Exploration and Understanding of Islands in the Han and Tang Dynasties
During the Han and Tang dynasties,"mountains","continents","islands",and"islets"were often used to refer to islands,among which,islands named after"mountains"were said to have certain divinity,islands named after"continent"were much larger in size,and"is-land"has gradually become a general term for all islands.The distance between the far-sea islands and Chinese mainland,and their size were mainly reported and transmitted by envoys of the Chinese dynasties,and were mainly expressed in terms of the number of days of sailing or land travel;while the distance between the offshore islands and the land,and their size,and height of the offshore islands were mostly known by observation and measurement,and were mainly expressed in miles.The offshore islands were considered to be attached to the land,and the livelihood of the people there was mainly based on agriculture,with fishing,salt,and navigation as supplements.The dynastic states controlled the islands in much the same way as they controlled the lands.The far-sea island countries were considered far from Chinese mainland,where people there depended largely on sea for their live-lihoods,and the states valued navy,navigation,and trade greatly.The knowledge about the offshore islands mainly came from people on land,and the offshore islands and their economic and social socie-ty were described as the extension of the land and its economic and social system.And the knowledge about the far-sea island countries mainly came from the exchanges between the Chinese dynasties and those countries,and the political,economic,social,and cultural forms of the far-sea island coun-tries described in the narrative were distinctly maritime in nature.
islandsoffshore islandsfar-sea islandsisland societiesHan and Tang dynasties
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