Keywords: China traditional culture; geographical environment
First, the basic characteristics of China's historical and geographical environment
The geographical ecological environment for the emergence and development of Chinese culture refers to the geographical environment of the whole historical period since China entered a civilized society, that is, the historical geographical environment. Geographical environment includes natural geographical environment and human geographical environment. Generally speaking, the natural geographical environment, such as climate, topography, landform, hydrology, vegetation, land and sea distribution, changes slowly, and sometimes it takes a long time for people to perceive it. However, in some stages and in some local areas, the changes of natural geographical environment may also occur very quickly and violently, which will have a great impact. The development and change speed of human geographical environment such as territory, administrative region, nationality, population, culture, city, transportation, agriculture and animal husbandry is much faster than that of natural geographical factors. Of course, these two aspects are interactive and cannot be completely separated.
1, region, administrative region
The territory from Qin Dynasty to Qing Dynasty was the most prosperous period of Qing Dynasty before the Opium War. The county system was implemented in Qin and Han dynasties, and gradually evolved into a three-level system of Daozhou county in Tang dynasty, mainly a three-level system of Luzhou county in Song dynasty, and a provincial system in Yuan dynasty, which was followed in Ming and Qing dynasties, with the basic form of province, state and county.
2. Nationality and population
China has always been a multi-ethnic country. All ethnic groups have jointly created China, and the territory of China has also been jointly developed and consolidated by all ethnic groups. At the beginning of AD, there were more than 60 million people. After several ups and downs, it reached 430 million by the middle of19th century. Population distribution is extremely uneven, migration is frequent, and there are many immigrants.
3. Topography and landforms
Some lakes have disappeared or changed greatly; Changes in waterways and water systems, such as the diversion of the Yellow River and the formation of the Haihe River system; Land and sea changes, some coastal areas have become land one after another, and some have fallen into the sea; Soil erosion and broken landforms in the Loess Plateau: desert expansion or range change, etc.
4. Climate
The temperature changes repeatedly, from cold to warm and from warm to cold; The change of wetting condition, from wetting to gradually drying, aggravated the drought.
Second, the basic characteristics of China traditional culture
China traditional culture was born in the specific geographical environment of China, and formed its own uniqueness in the process of development. The geographical environment has a profound and lasting influence on the characteristics of China's traditional culture.
1, continuous and persistent
In the thousands of years of human civilization, China culture is the only one that has not been interrupted and continued. This is a miracle in human history, which is largely attributed to the complete and vast geographical environment of China. In the process of its subtle influence on the surrounding foreign cultures, China traditional culture has always maintained its own complete style and increasingly perfect system. This long-term persistence has endowed China culture with strong self-confidence and a stable development process.
China, together with ancient Egypt, Babylonia and ancient India, is one of the four ancient civilizations in the world, but the difference is that the development of China's culture has relied on the Yellow River and the Yangtze River from the beginning, which has broad room for manoeuvre. History has repeatedly shown that when the powerful nomadic people in the north went south and the Central Plains lost the Yellow River basin, it could continue its culture based on the Yangtze River basin and the Pearl River basin. Therefore, in the history of China, the Western Jin Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty perished, and then the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty were established in the southeast corner respectively, and both lasted for 100 years. It is precisely because of this large room for manoeuvre that China culture is different from ancient cultures such as ancient Egypt, ancient Babylon and ancient India. In the later historical process, it was either replaced and interrupted, or annihilated and disappeared.
2. Diversity and inclusiveness
China's traditional culture is an endogenous culture, and the superior natural and geographical conditions enable the Han people living in the Yellow River valley to take the lead in developing their own culture, and then continue to integrate the cultures of other regions and ethnic groups in China. China's ethnic minorities, such as Xiongnu, Xianbei, Xiongnu, Qidan, Liao and Jin, finally accepted China culture consciously or unconsciously and merged into her blood. Without this integration, there would be no profoundness of China culture. This fusion and assimilation of China culture is a prerequisite for preserving and continuing an independent ancient cultural system.
3. Conservative and closed.
China culture developed in a relatively closed area with three sides of land and one facing the sea. Natural obstacles separated ancient China people from the outside world, forming a relatively closed geographical environment. It is easy to create an isolation mechanism, blocking China's more contact with the outside world. Coupled with superior internal natural conditions, they are almost completely self-sufficient. In addition, due to the precocious agricultural civilization and the relative backwardness of the surrounding areas, China people who have been calling themselves "China" are even more reluctant to take the initiative to deal with the outside world. In the history of China, although Zhang Qian initiated the "Silk Road" and Zheng He made seven voyages to the West, the vast majority of dynasties basically pursued the foreign policy of closed doors and had little contact with the outside world. In modern times, they adopted an increasingly closed-door policy. Due to the conservatism and closeness of China's traditional culture, China failed to absorb and accommodate foreign excellent culture in modern times, which led to the humiliation in China's modern history.
Third, the influence of geographical environment on China traditional culture
1. The influence of geographical environment on the formation and continuation of China culture.
China is a country famous for "building the country through agriculture", and rulers of all previous dynasties attached great importance to the development of agriculture. Geographical environment is an extremely important factor. To a great extent, "building a country by agriculture" determines that the ancient culture of China is a typical agricultural social culture.
China has a vast territory and vast internal plains, especially the Yellow River and the Yangtze River are adjacent, and there is no obvious natural barrier. So it is easy to unify politically, economically, culturally and militarily. Therefore, a powerful nomadic people invaded the south in history, and even if China lost the Yellow River basin, there was still a vast retreat to deal with. Ancient civilizations in other areas were destroyed by foreign invasion, but they never recovered. Only China can exert a subtle influence on the nation, always maintaining its own unique style and complete system, and making it endless.
2. The influence of geographical environment on cultural diversity in China.
China's complex terrain and diverse climate have formed its own unique geopolitical culture and regional concept. As early as the pre-Qin period, Qilu culture, Yanzhao culture, Sanqin culture, Jingchu culture, Wuyue culture, Bashu culture and Lingnan culture with their own characteristics and far-reaching influence on later generations were formed. Due to the emphasis on agriculture, the concept of attaching importance to soil and moving safely has formed in the Central Plains. Due to the limited arable land, the southeast coastal areas attach importance to overseas trade and are open-minded. The oasis area in northwest China was developed earlier because of land restrictions and its location in major traffic routes. Due to the harsh environment, nomadic people in the north have to cope with environmental pressure through frequent migration and war. Although China's regional culture shows obvious differences, it coexists with China's traditional culture, forming an integrated and pluralistic structure of China's traditional culture. With the expansion of China's farming economy to the surrounding areas, the inherent inclusiveness of China's traditional culture has promoted the complementarity and gradual integration of regional cultures. The coexistence of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism in the prosperous Tang Dynasty and the blending of Hu and Han fully illustrate this point. It is precisely because of this diversity and inclusiveness that China's traditional culture has always maintained a strong vitality.
3. The influence of geographical environment on opening and closing.
The opening and closing of geographical environment are relative and cannot be generalized. Different productive forces have different requirements for the environment and will produce different results. China has a relatively isolated geographical environment. It faces the sea in the east, spans a long desert in the northwest and has the largest Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the southwest. These are geographical restricted areas, which give the agricultural population insurmountable restrictions. This kind of environment, which faces the sea on one side, is extremely inconvenient in land transportation on three sides, and has a wide internal room for manoeuvre, has formed a state of semi-isolation from the outside world, so that China has no ambition to expand abroad and has developed an independent, peaceful and docile national character. Therefore, China culture is generally brewed and grown alone in the local area. Although foreign cultural elements are occasionally introduced from the western regions or the sea, they are graceful and tolerant, which makes the development of China culture stable and confident.
Four. Concluding remarks
China traditional culture has a long history of thousands of years, which not only contains rich content and vast territory, but also has a great influence on today's real life. Now, under the new situation of globalization and continuous blending of world cultures, in the process of socialist modernization, and under the requirement of always representing the direction of China's advanced culture, we must strive to build our own new culture. We should not only combine our own national conditions, introduce all excellent and valuable world cultural heritages, always keep an open mind and be good at absorbing foreign fresh cultural elements, but also give full play to, rationally utilize and effectively protect our own traditional cultural resources, so as to make China's traditional culture flourish and last forever, and use it to solve problems in the process of modernization and avoid many disadvantages exposed by western developed countries in the process of industrialization. Socialism with Chinese characteristics's modernization is guaranteed by a healthy, progressive and profound spiritual culture, so that all countries can share the unique contribution of China's traditional culture in the process of world civilization.
The significance of exploring the relationship between China traditional culture and geographical environment lies in fully absorbing and utilizing the valuable ideas about the relationship between man and nature in China traditional culture, deepening the understanding of natural laws, strengthening the care and protection of cultural environment, and paying more attention to the construction and coordinated development of regional culture while emphasizing the sustainable development of regional economy. China's traditional culture came into being and developed in a specific geographical stage in China, and it has played and will play a greater role in this stage, even in the whole world stage.