Place name dictionaries and gazetteers

• Da Qing yi tong zhi 大 清 一 統 志. Third revised edition of 1843. Jiaqing chong xiu yi tong zhi 嘉 慶 重 修 一 統 志 . Si bu cong kan 四 部 叢 刊 . Second Series. Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934. Photo duplicated from original manuscript by Commercial Press which has also added a supplementary index. Basic work of its kind treating Chinese historical geography until 1820.
• Feng Chengjun 馮 承 鈞. Xi yu di ming 西 域 地 名. Shanghai: Zhonghua shu ju, 1955. Very useful for identification of Chinese rendering of non-Chinese place names in western Asia.
• Gu Yanwu 顧 炎 武.Tian xia jun guo li bing shu 天 下 郡 國 利 病 書.
• Gu Zuyu 顧 祖 輿. Du shi fang yu ji yao 讀 史 方 輿 紀 要 .
• Hoshi Ayao 星 斌 夫, compiler. Shina chimei jiten 支 那 地 名 辭 典 . Tokyo: Fuzanbo, 1941.
• Jin Enhui, & Hu Shuzhao, eds. Zhongguo di fang zhi zong mu ti yao 中 國 地 方 志 綜 目 提 要 (General digest of Chinese gazetteers). 3 vols. Taibei: Han mei tu shu you xian gong si, 1996. Lists 8577 gazetteers geographically, with information on authorship, dating and contents.
• Liu Junren 劉 鈞 任, compiler. Zhongguo di ming da ci dian 中 國 地 名 大 辭 典 . Beijing: Guo li Beiping yan jiu yuan, 1930. Very handy due to romanized index. Reprint Taibei: Wen hai, 1967.
• Manual of Chinese-Manchurian Personal and Place Names. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Edwards Brothers, 1943.
• Playfair, M.H. The Cities and Towns of China: A Geographical Dictionary. Second Edition. Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh, 1910. Standard work in English. Reprint Taibei: Cheng wen, 1971.
• Saishin Chuka Minkoku Manshu Teikoku jinmei chimei binran 最 近 中 華 民 國 滿 洲 帝 國 人 名 地 名 , Taimusu Shuppansha hensan. Compiled by Taimusu Shuppansha. Tokyo: Taimusu Shuppansha, 1939.
• Tsiang, Amy Ching-fen, & Hong Cheng, compilers. A Catalog of Post-1949 Chinese Local Histories at UCLA. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles East Asian Library, 1997.
• U.S. Department of Interior, Office of Geography. Mainland China Administrative Divisions and Their Seats, Official Standard Names Approved by Board on Geographic Names. Washington, D. C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1963. See Berton, Peter, & Eugene Wu. Contemporary China: A Research Guide. Edited by Howard Koch, Jr. Stanford: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, 1967, p. 184, #414.
• U.S. Department of Interior, Office of Geography. China: Official Standard Names Approved by the U. S. Board on Geographic Names. Washington, D. C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1956. Two volumes (979 pp.) containing some 37,600 entries exclusive of Hong Kong, Macao, Sinkiang, Taiwan, and Tibet.
• U.S. Department of Interior, Office of Geography. Hong Kong, Macao, Sinkiang, Taiwan, and Tibet: Official Standard Names Approved by the U. S. Board on Geographic Names. Washington, D. C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1955.
• Wright, Hope. Alphabetical List of Geographic Names in Sung China. Paris: Ecole pratique des hautes etudes, 1956. Reprint Albany: Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, 1992.
• Yue shi 樂 史. Tai ping huan yu ji 太 平 寰 宇 記.
• Zhejiang gu jin di ming ci dian 浙 江 古 今 地 名 詞 典 (Dictionary of ancient and modern place names in Zhejiang Province). Compiled by Chen Qiaoyi 陳 橋 驛 . Hangzhou: 浙 江 教 育 出 版 社 , 1991.
• Zang Lihe 臧 勵 龢 , et al., compilers. Zhongguo gu jin di ming da ci dian 中 國 古 今 地 名 大 辭 典 . Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1930. More comprehensive than the CHGIS (see below) but not as easy to use. Also does not have some of the names listed in the above. Reprints Taibei: Taiwan shang wu, 1972; Hong Kong: Shang wu, 1982. .
• The China Historical Geographic Information System (CHGIS) project was launched in December 2000, with funding from the Luce Foundation. The CHGIS will establish a standardized coding system to identify historical administrative units for different periods in Chinese History, and will also provide a base GIS platform for researchers to use for spatial analysis,temporal statistical modeling, and representation of selected historical units as digital maps. The project will begin with several temporal slices from the Qing Dynasty and work backwards in time, allowing for additional information about intervening points in time to be added at any stage in the process. The objective is to create a flexible tool that can be used to investigate any sort of geographically specific data related to China. The CHGIS geocodes can be used as unique identifiers in databases, or to mark up texts, which will enable users to import their own datasets into the CHGIS platform. Users will be able to sort, query, and display their data, for different historical periods, or at different levels of aggregation. In addition, the CHGIS is designed to allow for alternate versions of both feature attribute tables, and their related spatial objects. This will enable users to create their own interpretations of historical administrative changes, should they wish to do so, and to store them in a separate spatial data table. In this way, alternate versions and interpretations of Chinese History can be displayed, overlayed, compared, and analyzed statistically. Similarly, alternate feature data tables can be associated with the spatial data in CHGIS, which could be used to generate tables and maps in different languages, or for analysis of highly specialized data, such as environmental change, population studies, the spread of religions, historical linguistics, etc.