LITERATI AND SPATIAL ORDER: A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF COMPREHENSIVE GAZETTEERS IN THE LATE MING.

This article is the first attempt in English language scholarship to study an important genre - the comprehensive gazetteer (zongzhi ) - in China's long tradition of geographical writing. Specifically, it focuses on the most efflorescent period of this genre during the late Ming, when private initiatives almost completely replaced state-sponsorship in its production. The first part of the article investigates these late Ming gazetteers' authorship and intended audience, their relation to the printing and publishing market, and the private scholars' motivation of engagements. The second part analyzes the spatial order that was projected in these privately produced gazetteers. As a whole, the article presents a picture in which ordinary literati of the late Ming participated in the ordering of space with unprecedented enthusiasm. In this process, they endorsed the spatial structure of the realm ordered by the administrative hierarchy, yet at the same time twisted this structure and tested its limits in many aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]