Qi 齊 emerged as a powerful territorial state in Shandong, eastern China between the seventh and fourth centuries BCE. Over this period, a notable transformation occurred in the political and spatial organization of the Qi state whereby traditional lineage and kin-based power structures were replaced by centralized institutions predicated on certain principles of territorial rule, including direct infrastructural and administrative control over lands, populations, and resources. To understand this shift and its broader implications for the spatial dynamics of state-building in early China, I synthesize a wide range of paleographic, archaeological, received textual, and numismatic evidence for Qi, focusing especially on three areas: (1) the urban development of the Qi capital at Linzi into an administrative-economic hub; (2) the construction of the southern frontier and the Long Wall of Qi; and (3) the introduction of Qi coinage and monetary zones. Through these analyses, I demonstrate that the territorial imprint of the Qi state was made strategically upon both the physical environment and imagined landscapes of Shandong in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.
Chris Kim is Visiting Assistant Professor at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. His research examines statecraft, political economy, and the spatial dynamics of state power in Zhou China (1045–221 BCE) through paleographic, archaeological, and textual analysis. His current book project, Building the Qi State: Lineage, Economy, and Territorial Organization in Early China, investigates the development of territorial administration, bureaucratic officialdom, urban networks, and monetary zones in the state of Qi in Shandong during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. In addition, his research interests include the origins of coinage in China, Eastern Zhou kingship, and discovering innovative applications of GIS and other spatial analysis approaches to map the early Chinese world. He has previously published studies on salt in the Western Zhou state and on Bronze Age Chinese political economies. Chris received his PhD from Columbia University, MA from Harvard University, and BA from Brown University.
