An attached county[1][2] or satellite county,[3] sometimes left untranslated in its Chinese name as a fuguoxian,[4] was a kind of historical tertiary administrative division in late Imperial China. It was a xian (generally translated for this period as "county" in English) based within the capital of a fu (generally translated for this period as "prefecture").
| Attached county | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 附郭縣 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 附郭县 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | county attached to a city wall | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Alternative Chinese name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 倚郭縣 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 倚郭县 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | county leaning against a city wall | ||||||||
| |||||||||
As such, many of the county magistrate's usual duties and powers were subordinated to the prefectural administration and he was subject to much closer supervision than usual. Although an attached county was given first rank among the divisions of a prefecture and known as the "head county",[5] the position was avoided by most scholar-bureaucrats. A Qing proverb held that, "If you had done something bad in your previous incarnation, you would be an average magistrate now; if you had done something worse, you would be a magistrate of a prefectural attached county; but if you had done something worst, you would be a magistrate of a provincial attached county" ("前生不善，今生知縣；前生作惡，知縣附郭；惡貫滿盈，附郭省城").[6]
History
editSince the Yuan dynasty, some zhou (smaller prefectures) began to be compact to dissolve their attached counties, thus they had direct authority over their walled cities along with environs (namely, zhou proper), rather than via any county. Since the Ming dynasty, all the attached counties of zhou (subprefectures) were eliminated.[5][7]
Under the Ming and Qing, it was standard for every prefecture to have an attached county with a limited role within and around the prefectural capital.[5]
There were, generally, multiple attached counties in larger prefectures: three and four in one instance, respectively (Suzhou in Qing, since 1724: Wu, Changzhou and Yuanhe; Jingzhao in Tang, since the late 660s: Chang'an, Wannian, Qianfeng, and Mingtang), two in all others. In such cases, their boundary ran through the walled city, and their owned yamen were sited in the appropriate sectors.[5][8]
Some attached counties are reserved so far. However, with urbanization, many of them have been merged,[8] similar to the consolidated city-county in the US.
References
editCitations
edit- ^ Zhao (2019), p. 2058.
- ^ Zhao (2022), p. 44.
- ^ Hua & Buell (2016), p. 330.
- ^ Wang et al. (2012), p. 24.
- ^ a b c d Skinner, William (1977). The City in Late Imperial China. ISBN 9780804708920.
- ^ Liang, Zhangju (1981). 歸田瑣記. Zhonghua Book Company. pp. 136–7. ISBN 9787101017465.
- ^ Zhou, Zhenhe (2005). 中国地方行政制度史. Shanghai People's Publishing House. p. 206. ISBN 9787208056541.
- ^ a b Zhao, Yicai. "附郭县两千余年的历史变迁". ex.cssn.cn. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
Bibliography
edit- Li Shizhen (2017), Hua Linfu; et al. (eds.), Ben Cao Gang Mu Dictionary, Vol. II: Geographical and Administrative Designations, Oakland: University of California Press, ISBN 9780520291966.
- Hua, Linfu; Buell, Paul D. (2016). Dictionary of the Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume 2: Geographical and Administrative Designations. Univ of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-29196-6.
- Wang, Chao; et al. (2012), "An Ontology-Based Fuzzy Matching Approach to Semantic Retrieval of Historical Place Names", The Outreach of Digital Libraries: A Globalized Resource Network..., Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 19–28, ISBN 9783642347528.
- Zhao, Yicai (2019), "Historical Reference and Optimization Reform of the Spatial Subordination Relationship of City and County in China", Geographical Research, vol. 38, pp. 2058–2067.
- Zhao, Yicai (2022), "Two Special Forms of Attached Counties in [the] Traditional Chinese System", Journal of Literature, History, & Philosophy, pp. 44–58.