Chapter 15 Section 5. Characteristics of Changes in the Size of Political Regions

The change of the size of administrative districts is more complicated. From the perspective of historical development, the general trend is to gradually become smaller.The main factor causing this general trend is political, which lies in the need to strengthen the centralization of power, or other political purposes.This has been mentioned above.Further analysis shows that the changes in the size of political districts also have the following characteristics. Due to differences in the degree of economic development, in the same dynasty, the size of administrative regions at the same level in different regions sometimes varies greatly.For example, in the Qin Dynasty, the northern counties were only equivalent to one or two regions today, and Hedong County was slightly similar to today's Linfen and Yuncheng in Shanxi, while the southern counties were as large as a province today, and Jiujiang County was originally equivalent to today's Anhui Province. and most of Jiangxi Province.Later, with the accelerated economic development in the south, more and more political districts were set up, and the size became smaller and smaller. Relatively speaking, the change rate of the size of the southern political districts was faster than that in the north.This geographical difference is mainly caused by economic factors.

Among the high-level areas, unified county administrative districts, and county-level administrative districts, the size of the high-level administrative districts varies greatly, followed by the unified county administrative districts, and the county-level administrative districts fluctuate the least.The changes of the former two are mainly affected by political factors, while the latter are mostly gradually shrinking due to economic development. In the late Southern and Northern Dynasties, the size of the three-level administrative districts shrunk rapidly, especially the reduction of the size of the two-level administrative districts of prefectures and counties seemed unstoppable, and even the strange phenomenon of double-headed counties and counties appeared.After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, this phenomenon did not reappear.Although the size of unified county administrative districts and county-level administrative districts is also gradually shrinking, they stop when they reach a certain limit.For example, the Tang Dynasty had a population of 50 million, and there were many large counties, but they were not repeatedly divided into small ones.At the same time, some small counties are very small and have not been merged, but coexist with large counties.Therefore, for the size of the county, there is a problem of a regional community. The internal geographical environment, economic development and cultural background of this community have certain similarities, but there are obvious differences compared with neighboring counties.This is also one of the reasons why the size of county-level administrative districts is relatively stable.

Similarly, there is a limit to the reduction of the size of the administrative districts of the unified county.Taking the southern region as an example, in today's Zhejiang Province, 10 half-states were established in the Tang Dynasty, and the size of 10 states has remained unchanged for more than a thousand years, and it has become a fixed pattern.These states form a community of their own in terms of physical geography, and they have great consistency in dialects. When discussing their history, each state was developed from one or two or two or three counties in the Qin and Han Dynasties or the Three Kingdoms period. In terms of human geography, a community with strong internal similarities is formed, so the territory generally does not shrink.

Fujian and Jiangxi were developed later than Zhejiang. In the Tang Dynasty, the prefectures were larger. Fujian was divided into five prefectures, and Jiangxi was divided into eight prefectures.In the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the Fujian and Jiangxi regions received a large number of immigrants from the north, and the economy began to develop, so the size of the Tong County administrative district also began to be reduced.By the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, Fujian had been divided into eight state armies (so Fujian was called "Bamin"), and Jiangxi was also divided into 13 state armies. Since then until the end of the Qing Dynasty, the size of the Tongxian administrative district has not shrunk, and has remained stable at 900 years long.It can be seen that the reduction of the size of the unified county administrative district cannot be unlimited.

The same is true for high-level administrative districts, whose size cannot be reduced without limit.Fangzhen in the late Tang Dynasty was the smallest of the high-level administrative districts in the past dynasties, and it was as small as two or three prefectures.But it can only be so small, no matter how small it is, it will not be a high-level administrative region.Moreover, the size of the two or three prefectures was already too small, so the Song Dynasty had to change course and set up a new high-level administrative district with a larger area-Lu.