Ancient China Geography Essay

Ancient China was cut off from much of the rest of the world by dry deserts to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the East and impassible mountains to the south until the Silk Road was established during the Han Dynasty circa 206 B.C.E. to 220 C.E. (Department of Asian Art). As a result, China’s geography isolated Chinese societies from the rest of the world and had a significant impact on the development of Chinese societies throughout history. Due to China’s significant size, it occupies a variety of environment types including mountains, plateaus, deserts, grasslands, and much of the temperate zone of Eastern Asia. In the Eastern Asia temperate zone, there is less than twenty inches of rainfall a year, while drought tended to be a recurrent problem for farmers in the north, populations were still able to grow and survive in this region by growing drought-resistant crops such as wheat and millet. In the South, the climate is wetter and warmer lending to the dominant crops being suited to growing rice. The Yangzi River dominates the South, and allows for people to live off of the river in addition to subsisting by farming, as well as utilize the river to be more mobile throughout the region when travelling via boat (McKay, 91). “From about 10,000 B.C.E. agriculture was

“Because nearly all economic activity has environmental consequences, roads also foster[ed] environmental change [in the region]” (Marks, 81). Agricultural develop in these new areas opened up allowing for more settlements throughout those regions and the expansion of the Chinese empire of the time. As roads and civilization expanded, a network of roads connecting China to the Central Asian trade was established, “this network of roads and trade routes later became known as ‘the silk road,’ ultimately going all the way to the eastern Mediterranean and the Roman