意象与现实:宋代城市等级刍议

人口数量是反映城市发展水平的重要指标。不少学者在论著中,从不同的侧面提出了他们关于宋代城市等级的看法,研究思路都是通过广泛搜集文献记载中偶存的宋代城市人口数据的片断信息,归纳得出结论,但相互间歧见颇大。其实,宋人关于城市人口规模的表述更多地是出于意象,宋人的这种意象,与其说主要依据于实际人口数量,不如说依据于城市的行政地位,因此在时人意象中城市规模的差序格局就形成了都城百万家、路治十万家、州军与重要县城万家以及一般县城数千家这样几个等级分明的序列。这说明至少就某种程度而言,在两宋士人的心目中,城市的行政地位比它们的实际规模更为重要。讨论宋代城市发展史不应忽视这一史实。

Image and Reality:A Tentative Study on Hierarchical Structure of the Song Dynasty Cities

Population size is a basic index for cities.A number of scholars had studied the size of urban population of the Song Dynasty in their works.The common approaches they take are to gather pieces of relevant records in historical literature as many as possible,analyze these records inductively,and assume a percentage of urban population of the country of that time.But the differences of their conclusions are much diversified.Still,population image is a topic asking for attention.Actually,it is better to look ...