Zhou (administrative division)
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Zhou | |||||||||||||||||
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Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||
Chinese | |||||||||||||||||
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Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||
Vietnamese alphabet | châu | ||||||||||||||||
Korean name | |||||||||||||||||
Hangul | 주 | ||||||||||||||||
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Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||
Hiragana | しゅう | ||||||||||||||||
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Please add Mongolian script to this article, where needed. |
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Han_provinces.jpg/300px-Han_provinces.jpg)
Zhou (Chinese:
Overview
[edit]Zhou is typically rendered by several terms in the English language:
- The large zhou before the Tang dynasty and in countries other than China are called "provinces"
- The smaller zhou during and after the Tang dynasty are called "prefectures"[citation needed]
- The zhou of the Qing dynasty are also called either "independent" or "dependent departments", depending on their level.[citation needed]
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Zhejiang_1773-1820.jpg/300px-Zhejiang_1773-1820.jpg)
The Tang dynasty also established fǔ (
After the Meiji Restoration, fu was also used in Japanese for the urban prefectures of the most important cities; today, it is still used in the Japanese names for the Osaka and Kyoto Prefectures.
In the People's Republic of China, zhou today exists only in the designation "autonomous prefecture" (Chinese:
History
[edit]Zhou were first mentioned in ancient Chinese texts, notably the Yu Gong or Tribute of Yu, section of the Book of Documents. All agreed on the division of China into nine zhou, though they differed on their names and position. These zhou were geographical concepts, not administrative entities.[1]
The Han dynasty was the first to formalize the zhou into actual administrative divisions by establishing 13 zhou all across China. Because these zhou were the largest divisions of the China at the time, they are usually translated as "provinces". After the Han dynasty, however, the number of zhou began to increase. By the time of the Sui dynasty, there were over a hundred zhou all across China.
The Sui and Tang dynasties merged zhou with the next level down, the commanderies or jùn (
The Republic of China abolished zhou altogether, leaving the word only in the names of cities such as Guangzhou and Hangzhou.[citation needed] The People's Republic of China recycled the name, using it to refer to the autonomous prefectures granted to various ethnicities.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Po, Ronald Chung-yam (October 23, 2013). "(Re)Conceptualizing the World in Eighteenth Century China". World History Connected. 9 (1). World History Connected, University of Illinois. Archived from the original on April 24, 2012. Retrieved January 10, 2014.