Jiangnan

See also: Jiāngnán

English

The Jiangnan region under its various definitions

Jiangnan Province—as "Nanking or Kiangnan"—from Martino Martini's 1655 Novus Atlas Sinensis

Alternative forms

• Chiang-nan, Kiangnan, Kiang-nan

Etymology

From Hanyu Pinyin Jiāngnán, from the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 江南 (Jiāngnán, “[Place] South of the [Yangtze] River”), from Classical Chinese use of 江 (jiāng) as a proper name for the Yangtze.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d͡ʒɑŋ.nɑn/

Proper noun

Jiangnan

1. A roughly defined area of China always including the lands south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze in Shanghai, southern Jiangsu, and northern Zhejiang, sometimes inclusive of its cultural sphere north of the river and sometimes extending south as far as Guangdong.
   • [1976, Wen Fong, “Introduction: Mountains and Rivers Remain”, in Returning Home: Tao-chi's Album of Landscapes and Flowers‎^[1], New York: George Braziller, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 16:

     They traveled northeast along the Hsiang River, on foot and by boat, then turned east from northern Hunan into Kiangsi and Anhwei, reaching the heart of the Chiangnan region (south of the Yangtze River). For the next ten years they journeyed all over Chiangnan, stopping at the famous religious shrines and scenic sites.]

   • 1997, R. Bin Wong, “Confucian Agendas for Material and Ideological Control in Modern China”, in Culture & State in Chinese History: Conventions, Accommodations, and Critiques‎^[2], Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 320:

     Jiangnan elites were those least affected by the bureaucratic changes of the eighteenth century; the shared agenda of local order was met by elites in Jiangnan with little official intervention, even in the eighteenth century. When the eighteenth-century system fell apart, a Jiangnan style of social order in which elites, sometimes with local official involvement, created local institutions without vertically integrated bureaucratic oversight appears to have become more common.

   • 2016 September 27, “The Best Cookbooks of Fall 2016”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 30 September 2016, Cookbooks‎^[4]:

     For her latest, Fuchsia Dunlop, a British cook and food writer who has been studying Chinese cooking since the mid-1990s, dives deep into the balanced flavors of Jiangnan, the region in eastern China that includes the nation’s largest city, Shanghai.

2. (historical) A province of Qing-era China, now divided into Jiangsu and Anhui.
   • [1972, “Conditions of Rice Culture: Labor Requirements and Land Tenure”, in Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South China‎^[5], Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 13:

     The reason Hunan’s rich soils did not produce rice yields to match those of the “barren” lands of Fukien and Chekiang was because manpower was scarce in Hunan. Rice could not be grown with the same care found in the two densely populated Chiangnan provinces.]

Synonyms

• Nanjing (informal), Nanzhili (imprecise)

Translations

area in China, former province of the Qing Empire

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 江南 (zh) (Jiāngnán)

• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Korean: 강남(江南) (ko) (Gangnam)
• Manchu: ᡤᡳᠶᠠᠩᠨᠠᠨ (giyangnan), ᡤᡳᠶᠠᠩ
  ᠨᠠᠨ (giyang nan)
• Vietnamese: Giang Nam

See also

• Gangnam

Further reading

• Jiangnan, Chiang-nan, Kiangnan, Kiang-nan at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
• Saul B. Cohen, editor (1998), “Jiangnan”, in The Columbia Gazetteer of the World‎^[6], volume 2, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 1446, column 2: “Also known as Nanjing.”