Shan Chang, Li Daoyuan was born in today's Suizhou
County of North China's Hebei
Province into an official family. No certainty has yet been reached on the
exact time of his birth, either in 469 or 427 during the Northern
As a small boy, Li set his heart on geological research. He loved traveling
to the rivers and mountain, and especially took to the research on the hydrology
and geology of various places.
Later, taking advantage of being an official of different places, Li carried
out field investigations, leaving footsteps in today's Henan (Central China),
Shandong (East), Shanxi (North), and Jiangsu (East) provinces, and so on.
Whenever he went to a place, Li would visit the local places of interest and
the rivers and mountains, conducting painstaking reconnaissance on the water
flow and topography and visiting the elders for knowledge on the changes and the
sources of the rivers. Through investigations on the local geography, history,
and customs, he got large amounts of firsthand materials.
Besides, he read a great many ancient geological books, such as Shan
(Mountain and Sea Classics) and Shui Jing (River Classic),
accumulating rich geographical knowledge, which laid a solid foundation for his
geographical research and writing.
In comparing the geographical phenomena that he saw and what was written in
geographical works, Li found many geographical conditions had changed over time.
If the changes were not recorded in time, it would be even harder for the later
generations to figure out the changes in history.
Li strongly felt it necessary to carry out a detailed inspection of the
geographical conditions and write down the historical changes in respect to the
ancient geographical literature. Therefore, Li decided to write a complete
geographical book on the basis of Shui Jing in a commentary form.
A geographical book by Sang Qin of the Three
Kingdoms Period (220-280), Shui
Jing briefed on the watercourses of the country's 137 rivers. With a total of
only 10,000 characters, the records of rivers were rather concise and
non-systematic, providing no specific information on the geographical conditions
of the areas where the rivers passed by.
With the rich firsthand materials he had got and on the basis of Shui Jing,
Li finally finished a famous geographical book - Shui
Jing Zhu (Commentary
to the River