[1] In 1940, Tan joined Zhejiang University and then relocated to inland Guizhou province due to the Japanese invasion of China, as an associate professor.

The atlas consists of 304 maps covering thousands of years of Chinese history until the Qing Dynasty and includes over 70,000 place names.

According to his student Ge Jianxiong, Tan was under strong political pressure to make the historical Tibet appear smaller, but he insisted on being faithful to history and included Xinjiang as Tibetan territory during the late 8th century, and his version was eventually approved by China's then-reformist leader, Hu Yaobang.

[3] His students include Wang Zhongshu, who studied history with him at Zhejiang University and later became one of the most prominent archaeologists in Asia.

[4] At Fudan University, students Zhou Zhenhe and Ge Jianxiong, now well-known historians, were the first two recipients of the doctoral degree in humanities (文科博士) in the People's Republic of China.