Nine Provinces

The Nine Provinces, according to the Rongcheng Shi, are Tu (涂), Jia (夾), Zhang (竞), Ju (莒), Ou (藕), Jing (荊), Yang (陽), Xu (敘) and Cuo (虘).

The geography section (釋地) of the ancient Erya encyclopedia also cites nine provinces, but with You and Ying (營) listed instead of Qing and Liang.

[7] Later on, Zou Yan, an adherent of the Taoist Yin and Yang School (陰陽家), proposed a new theory of the "Greater Nine Provinces" (大九州).

The Nine Provinces' names in the "Geographical Instruction" section (地形訓) of Huainanzi, annotations to Zhang Heng's biography (張衡傳注) in Book of the Later Han and volume eight of the Chuxue Annals (初學記), are different from the traditional ones listed above.

[8][9] According to the "Forms of Earth" (墜形訓) section of the Huainanzi, outside the Greater Nine Provinces are the Eight Yin (八殥), the Eight Hong (八紘) and the Eight Ji (八極).

The Greater Nine Provinces theory was based on the knowledge in the states of Yan and Qi on the Yellow Sea coast that China comprised only 1/81 of the entire world, markedly different from the Sinocentric point of view that was prevalent at the time.

Geographic knowledge from increasing contact between the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) and its neighbours proved the theory false and it lost popularity.