Documents 12-14 are selections from the Chongyang county gazetteer (Chongyang xianzhi 崇陽縣志) edition of 1866. Gazetteers, sometimes called "local histories," are basic sources for the study of local society. These comprehensive guides to local administrative areas (provinces, prefectures, county-level units, sometimes even important market towns) were compiled periodically, sometimes as often as every few decades. The Chongyang gazetteer, for instance, is listed as having had four editions during the Qing period. Generally, the wealthier the area, the more frequently (and elaborately) gazetteers were compiled. More information on gazetteers is found under Local gazetteers in "Reference Guides."

Although the main reason for compiling a new edition was to update information, considerable material was always carried over from one edition to another. Thus a gazetteer can generally be regarded as a cut-and-paste job with additions. The advantage of this practice is that the historical evolution of institutions can be followed easily in any single edition.

Major divisions in the Chongyang gazetteer of 1866:

• 疆域 jiang-yu
  boundaries and territories (administrative and physical geography)
• 建置 jian-zhi
  structures and institutions (including walls and moats, government offices, etc.)
• 食貨 shi-huo
  food and commodities (local economics, including the tax system)
• 禮樂 li-yue
  rites and music (rituals and sacrifices)
• 職官 zhi-guan
  official posts (including lists, and some biographies, of officials who had served in the county)
• 選舉 xuan-ju
  the examination system (including lists of higher-degree holders; does not deal with lowly sheng-yuan, who are considered to be still students)
• 人物 ren-wu
  biographies (of local elite; officials serving in the county are included under zhiguan)
• 綸音 lun-yin
  imperial pronouncements (conferral of honors, etc.)
• 藝文 yi-wen
  bibliography (works of local people)
• 雜記 za-ji
  miscellaneous accounts (local disasters and anomalies of nature, temples and monasteries, cemeteries, etc.)

Digitization of the three documents in this section was done by the Qing history seminar at Seoul National University, used here with kind permission of Professor Koo Bumjin, Department of History, SNU.

Documents

• I.12 Evolution of Chong-yang as an administrative unit
• I.13 Selection from the "Disasters and omens" section of the Chong-yang gazetteer
• I.14 Proclamation by the Wu-chang Prefect, from the 1866 Chong-yang gazetteer