Intertextuality, Customs and Regionalism in the ‘Geographical Treatise’

Abstract

After an introductory overview of the treatises on geography and their content in official histories prior to the seventh century, my analysis will focus on the general introduction of the Sui shu ‘Geographical Treatise’ in order to understand the historical information given behind the geographical description of the empire. Basing further comments on readings from the concluding remarks and judgments of the ‘Treatise’ together with a close study of the middle Yangtze region, its customs and its integrating process in the empire, I will attempt to discuss how history can be written through the representation of space (here, the administrative and cultural structure of the empire).