ABSTRACT
In a typical Shanghai suburban settlement, the surname of a majority of the household heads is still included in the geographical name of the place. Such hamlets are groupings of houses. In Tang Family Village, i.e. Tangjiacun in Qingcun township, Fengxian county, the hamlet size ranged from about 25 to 60 households. In the largest, Tang Family Hamlet (Tangjiatang), in 1988 the most common surname was Tang. Parallel situations, with other surnames, existed in two Xu Family Hamlets and in the Gu Family Hamlet, to mention the most populous cases. So although most people in the larger Tang Family Village (as distinct from the smaller hamlet) did not have the Tang surname, nonetheless Tang Family Hamlet with a majority of Tangs is geographically at the center of the larger village, located where the main bridge crosses the largest canal.27 Once such places became rich independently, as they did during the reforms, they were the main solidarities for their members.
