Zhou (administrative division)
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2014) |
| Zhou | |
|---|---|
| Chinese name | |
Hanyu Pinyin | zhōu |
| Wade–Giles | chou1 |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Jyutping | zau1 |
| Southern Min | |
| Hokkien POJ | chiu |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Revised Romanization | ju |
| McCune–Reischauer | chu |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Revised Hepburn | shū |
 | Please add Mongolian script to this article, where needed. |
Zhou (
: shū).Overview
Zhou is typically rendered by several terms in the English language:
- The large zhou before the Tang dynasty and in countries other than China are called "provinces"
- The smaller zhou during and after the Tang dynasty are called "prefectures"[citation needed]
- The zhou of the Qing dynasty are also called either "independent" or "dependent departments", depending on their level.[citation needed]
The
After the Meiji Restoration, fu was also used in Japanese for the urban prefectures of the most important cities; today, it is still used in the Japanese names for the Osaka and Kyoto Prefectures.
In the
History
Zhou were first mentioned in ancient Chinese texts, notably the
The Han dynasty was the first to formalize the zhou into actual administrative divisions by establishing 13 zhou all across China. Because these zhou were the largest divisions of the China at the time, they are usually translated as "provinces". After the Han dynasty, however, the number of zhou began to increase. By the time of the Sui dynasty, there were over a hundred zhou all across China.
The Sui and Tang dynasties merged zhou with the next level down, the commanderies or jùn (郡). The Tang also added another level on top: the circuit or dào (道). Henceforth, zhou were lowered to second-level status, and the word becomes translated into English as "prefecture".[citation needed] Thereafter, zhou continued to survive as second- or third-level political divisions until the Qing dynasty.
The
See also
References
- University of Illinois. Archivedfrom the original on April 24, 2012. Retrieved January 10, 2014.