Learning the names and locations of the landforms, cities, and provinces of China can be a daunting task for Westerners.  However, I think I figured out a way for us to have a better understanding of the Far East, at least in terms of the names.

One aspect of studying the cultural landscape involves language.  Toponyms are place names.  Place names usually provide big clues as to the surroundings or history of a place.  If you learned the names of all the world's major rivers, you would no doubt find that almost all these toponyms translate to "big river" (see George R. Stewart's Names on the Globe for a good coverage of toponyms).  In China, the Chang Jiang (or Yangtze River) translates to "long river."

Besides toponyms, you can find writing in the physical landscape.  When you enter Victoria Harbor on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, you will see the words "Welcome to Victoria" spelled out in the flower bed.  Arches placed above the town's main street, usually bearing the name of the town, are a common motif for Tinytown USA (such as our own Weed Arch).  You can also find capital letters written on hillsides (often with white-painted rocks) in the American West.  What do these letters stand for?  They're usually either the first letter of the name of the town, or the first letter of the high school's or junior high's team name.  Even in our area we have a (highly-weathered) "W" on Reservoir Hill here in Weed.  Sometimes you can see numbers instead of letters in the landscape (there is an old and a new number on the south side of Black Butte).  What do you think the numbers stand for? (Usually the year of the graduating class of the students who put up the numbers.)

There are other ways language is found in the cultural landscape, such as in street names.  How many streets in America do you think are named Washington?  Bunches of them.  I wouldn't be surprised if most states have a Washington County.  We even have a state named Washington.  Our capital is even named Washington!  An outsider examining the cultural landscape of America could probably figure out that someone named Washington was important in our history.  Besides street names, we have business names and advertisements.  We display these names and words in many ways.

In China, as well as in Chinatowns around the world, there is an abundance of language in the landscape.  In this presentation, we will be examining the Chinese characters of Chinese provinces, cities, and landforms.