Geography in China ? A report

Abstract

The following report is based on my two visits, each of about two weeks, undertaken at the respective invitations of the Peking-based Academy of Sciences (Academia Sinica) and the Academy of Social Sciences in April and May 1979. Discussion focussed on the possible co-operation of Chinese universities and academies within the framework of the programmes of the United Nations University, Tokyo. The spelling of places and names follows the Anglicization and does not consider the newly introduced phonetic Pinyin method, e.g., Peking instead of Beijing, Canton instead of Guangzhou, etc. Most of the names were given to me in handwriting during visits to institutions. I use them in each case without being able to check on the correct transcriptions. This report attempts to give a current vignette of the study of geography in China, describing the personnel and programmes of various institutions without going into details of methodology.Neither the Academy nor the university institutions have prepared a similar summary and there appears to be a direct need for this information in order to achieve closer co-operation. Obviously, the survey could only have been conducted in co-operation with Chinese colleagues, and I am deeply grateful to them.