This book represents the most important academic achievements won by Dr. Renzhi Hou, one of the founding fathers of and pioneering researchers in the modern historical geography of China. His collected papers and speeches, spanning from the 1940s to the 1990s, serve as a window into Hou's academic experience as well as the development of the historical geography of China during the second half of the 20th century. Dr. Hou has made his greatest contributions mainly in two areas, namely, urban historical geography and desert historical geography. Roughly a quarter of this book is devoted to the...