After graduation he worked for many years as an engineer at a coal mine in Hunan Province.
[1][2] When the National Higher Education Entrance Examination was restored after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Zhou took and excelled in the graduate examination and was admitted to the graduate school of Fudan University to study historical geography under the famous scholar, academician Tan Qixiang.
[1] In 1983, Zhou and his classmate Ge Jianxiong became the first two recipients of the doctoral degree in humanities (文科博士) in the People's Republic of China.
[3] Zhou has been a faculty member of the Institute of Historical Geography of Fudan University since 1983, and became a Distinguished Senior Professor in 2008.
[2] Zhou Zhenhe is the chief editor of General History of Chinese Administrative Divisions, a 13-volume series covering the history of Chinese administrative divisions from the earliest dynasties (Shang and Zhou) to the Republic of China (1912–1949).