Tan Qixiang

Tan Qixiang (; 25 February 1911 − 28 August 1992) was a Chinese geographer and historian who is considered a founder of the field of historical geography in Modern China. His magnum opus, the eight-volume The Historical Atlas of China, was published between 1982 and 1988. He was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1981.

Early life Tan Qixiang was born on 25 February 1911 at the Huanggutun railway station in Shenyang, Liaoning. Soon after his birth, he was brought back to his hometown of Jiaxing, Zhejiang. After attending Xiuzhou High School in Jiaxing, he briefly studied sociology at Shanghai University in 1926 before transferring to Jinan University (then located in Shanghai), where he graduated from the history department in 1930. At Fudan University, students Zhou Zhenhe and Ge Jianxiong, now well-known historians, were the first two recipients of the doctoral degree in humanities (文科博士) in the People's Republic of China.