ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the overall features of urbanization of the society in the Jiangnan area from middle to late imperial China, focusing particularly on the intensifying trend of the “urban–rural continuum.” The sociological term “urban–rural continuum” implies the interstitial placement of cities and marketplaces in the countryside. The early phase of such a pattern of urban–rural relationship first emerged in Chinese society during mid-Tang times (approximately the second half of the eighth century). The skeletal form of this pattern was then fully fleshed out during a millennial course of history that followed. What does this change mean in the enduring trajectory of the urban system in China? My interpretative hypothesis about this change is that it represents the shift from an “incomplete” urban hierarchy in early imperial times to a “complete” one in the middle and late imperial periods. 1
