page_title: History of the administrative divisions of China before 1912
section_title: Provinces under the Yuan dynasty
hierarchical_section_title: History of the administrative divisions of China before 1912 / Provinces under the Yuan dynasty
caption_attribution_description: English: Provinces of Yuan Dynasty as of 1330 A.D.
context_page_description: The history of the administrative divisions of the Imperial China is quite complex. Across history, what is called 'China' has taken many shapes, and many political organizations. For various reasons, both the borders and names of political divisions have changed—sometimes to follow topography, sometimes to weaken former states by dividing them, and sometimes to realize a philosophical or historical ideal. For recent times, the number of recorded tiny changes is quite large; by contrast, the lack of clear, trustworthy data for ancient times forces historians and geographers to draw approximate borders for respective divisions. But thanks to imperial records and geographic descriptions, political divisions may often be redrawn with some precision. Natural changes, such as changes in a river's course, or loss of data, still make this issue difficult for ancient times.
context_section_description: The Mongols, who succeeded in subjugating all of China under the Yuan dynasty in 1279, introduced the precursors to the modern provinces as a new primary administrative level:
  Provinces (行中書省/行中书省, xíngzhōngshūshěng)
  Circuits (路, lù)
  Prefectures (larger: 府, fǔ; smaller: 州, zhōu)
  Counties
  The area around the capital, corresponding to modern Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, central Inner Mongolia, Beijing, and Tianjin, was called the Central Region (腹裏/腹里) and not put into any province, but was directly controlled by the Central Secretariat (Zhongshu Sheng). The Tibetan Plateau was controlled by the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs (Xuanzheng Yuan).
caption: Yuan provinces in 1330 AD.
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