Zhongguo Jiu Fangzhi

Local Gazetteer definition: “Local gazetteers (difangzhi or fangzhi for short), sometimes also called local histories … they were often compiled by members of the local elite and were produced under the sponsorship of the local officials. … They form one of the most important sources for the study of Chinese history in the past one thousand years, since they contain copious materials on local administration, local economies, local cultures, local dialects, local officials, and local dignitaries-materials that often cannot be found elsewhere. " (Endymion Wilknson, Chinese history: a manual, 2020). Other definitions see Qing Docs Wiki.

Harvard-Yenching Library has one of the four largest Chinese local gazetteers collections in the United States, the others being at the Library of Congress, the University of Chicago and Columbia University. Many of the ones at Harvard-Yenching Library are in good conditions and were regular local gazetteers that were published before 1949. The Chinese local gazetteers are the basic research materials for scholars, no matter whether they are in literature, or history, or sociology, the local gazetteers are the major records for original research. The library has been digitalizing rare Chinse local gazetters in cooperation with Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China) and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Beijing, China). This is an ongoing and unfinished process. (See An Interview with James Cheng, former Director of the Harvard-Yenching Library) The colleciton includes 善本方志 and 普通舊方志