4 Territory
During the Zhou Dynasty, China was originally the region around the Yellow River. Since then, the territory expanded outward in all directions, and was largest during the Tang, Yuan, and Qing dynasties. From the Chinese point of view, the "Chinese" Empire included parts of modern far eastern Russia and Central Asia during the strongest periods of the Yuan, although China was merely one of many territories of the Mongol Empire.
Along with provincial administrators, some foreign monarchs sent envoys to offer gifts to the Emperor of China and the Emperor returned compliments to them. The Chinese ostensibly saw that barbarians attached themselves to the virtue of the Emperor, while the foreign governments sometimes had different perspectives. Since the end of the 19th century, China has tried to interpret this relationship as suzerainty-dependency based on Western international law.
The Qing Empire reduced the territorial value of the Great Wall of China as a barrier of China proper. In 1683 after the surrender of the Kingdom of Tungning established by Koxinga, Taiwan became a part of the Qing Empire, originally as one prefecture, then two. Taiwan was subsequently ceded to Japan after the first Sino-Japanese War in 1895. At the end of the second Sino-Japanese War in 1945, Japan relinquished the sovereignty of the island in San Francisco Peace Treaty. Since then, the sovereignty of Taiwan has been under dispute between the PRC, ROC and Taiwan independence supporters.
Top-level political divisions of China have altered as the administration changed. Top levels included circuits and provinces. Below that, there have been prefectures, subprefectures, department s, commanderies, districts, and counties. Recent divisions also include prefecture-level cities, county-level cities, town s and township s.
China has historically been thought of as being composed of five regions: China proper, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Tibet. These regions used to correspond closely to ethnic and administrative reality, but today they no longer do, and contemporary Chinese rarely (if ever) think of China as composed of these regions; instead they think in terms of provinces. The regions are separated by borders that are vague at best. China proper is generally thought to be bounded by the Great Wall and the edge of the Tibetan plateau; Manchuria and Inner Mongolia are found to the north of the Great Wall of China, and the boundary between them can either be taken as the present border between Inner Mongolia and the northeast Chinese provinces, or the more historic border of the World War II-era puppet state of Manchukuo; Xinjiang's borders correspond to today's administrative Xinjiang; and historic Tibet is conceived as occupying all of the Tibetan Plateau. China proper is traditionally thought of as further comprising North China (北方) and South China (南方), though the boundary between north and south has never been clear. Manchuria and Inner Mongolia are usually conceived as part of North China; Xinjiang and Tibet are usually not put into either of these two categories.
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