From the earliest times in China’s history, there have been studies focusing on ancient place names. Since the formation of modern toponymy, more and more scientific methods have been applied. Since the launch of the China Geographical Names Cultural Heritage Protection Project in 2004, the protection and research of toponymy has attracted wide attention of academic circles.
There are more than 100,000 ancient place names covering China’s existing political districts, settlements, mountains, rivers and roads. Tan Ruwei, professor from the Cultural Geography Research Center at Tianjin Normal University, said that toponymy contains not only geographical, but also social and cultural phenomena.
Read about the secret of Chinese toponyms here.