Chen Kuo-tung 陳國棟
Handbooks of the Chinese Sea-farers: A General Introduction
China has a long history of navigating the ocean and seas. They also developed their own sources of sailing guide. This paper divides the information contained in their guides into two parts: sea rutters and coastal profiles. Origin and development of the handbooks of Chinese seafarers is first examined. Following it, some selected versions of sailing guides are introduced. In the third and last part, structure and organization of rutters as well as the improvement of the images of coastal profiles comes to be the main issue.