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Imperially Commissioned Polyglot Gazetteer of the Western Regions

English editorial translation of the Chinese source entry

The Qinding Xiyu tongwenzhi, usually called the Xiyu tongwenzhi, was a multilingual reference work produced under the Qianlong emperor to standardize names of places, individuals, offices, and other terms associated with the northwestern regions of the Qing empire. The Palace Mus…

Written by MING YEArchives & Historical SourcesManchuCulture Wiki
Source-based English editorial manuscript · Historical details subject to final source verification.

Origin and compilation

The Qinding Xiyu tongwenzhi, usually called the Xiyu tongwenzhi, was a multilingual reference work produced under the Qianlong emperor to standardize names of places, individuals, offices, and other terms associated with the northwestern regions of the Qing empire. The Palace Museum describes a Wuying Palace woodblock edition printed in 1763, consisting of twenty-four juan, compiled under imperial direction by officials including the grand secretary Fuheng.

Languages and arrangement

Its entries bring together Manchu, Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Oirat Clear Script (Todo) representations. According to the museum's description, entries were organized with Manchu first, followed by Chinese translations, glosses, and phonetic renderings, as well as corresponding expressions in the other written languages. The vocabulary spans mountains, rivers, settlements, persons, governmental offices, and religious figures, organized by region and subject. The museum describes approximately 3,202 entries.

Historical value

Following the Qing campaigns in the northwest that concluded in 1759, the court ordered the book compiled in connection with work on the official military history of the region. The gazetteer is therefore evidence both for eighteenth-century geographical nomenclature and for the administrative practice of presenting names across multiple imperial languages. Modern scholarship must distinguish the names officially used at the time from present-day administrative designations and avoid assuming that differences among transliterations alone prove an individual's ethnicity or a place-name's linguistic origin.

Sources and Bibliography

  1. Historical source 1 — www.dpm.org.cn

Links reproduce references supplied with the Chinese editorial manuscript; they do not establish that every individual statement has undergone independent archival verification.