IMPERIAL CHINA: FROM CITY-STATE TO WORLD METROPOLIS

The emergence of the Chinese city

The world's pre-modern urban history was mainly a Chinese phenomenon (Rozman, 1973:3). Of approximately 4% of the world's population living in cities of over 10,000 inhabitants in 1800, about one third, or 12 million, lived in China which led the world in economic development until the eighteenth century, when it may have been surpassed by Japan, as well as by western Europe. Some two-fifths of the world's population were in China and Japan, yet ‘until now there have been no knowledgeable comparisons of Chinese and Japanese cities with each other or with cities in other countries’ (Rozman, 1973:7). The Chinese people emerged from a blending of north and north-western, nomadic and pastoral Turks, Tungus, Mongols and Tibetans, with settled, agricultural Tai, Miao and Yao further south. The blending continued throughout Chinese history and is culturally paralleled by the joint heritage of northern Yangshao (Eberhard, 1960:48; Stover and Stover, 1976:18–24) and south-central Lungshan (Stover and Stover, 1976:24–6). The hand-coiled, white, red and black painted pottery of the former has striking echoes in Turkestan and Caucasus, while their more widespread grey pottery was a local tradition and their chopsticks, double steamers, tripods and woven silk became characteristically Chinese.