The Historical Atlas of China

The atlas consists of 8 volumes:

1. Archaeological findings, Xia, Shang dynasties and Zhou dynasty (Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period)
2. Qin dynasty, Western and Eastern Han dynasties
3. Three Kingdoms and Western Jin dynasty
4. Eastern Jin dynasty, Sixteen Kingdoms and Southern and Northern Dynasties
5. Sui dynasty, Tang dynasty and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period
6. Song dynasty, Liao dynasty and Jin Empire
7. Yuan dynasty and Ming dynasty
8. Qing dynasty

On each map, ancient places and water features are shown in black and blue respectively, superimposed on modern features, borders and claims, shown in brown. All country-wide maps, from Paleolithic onward, include an inset showing the Nine-Dash Line in the South China Sea. Placenames are given in simplified characters, though an edition of the atlas published in Hong Kong uses traditional characters.[1]

The Atlas is considered the most authoritative compendium of ancient place names and administrative boundaries, and a tremendous improvement on its predecessor, Yang Shoujing's Lidai yudi tu (Yangtu, "Yang's atlas", 1906–1911).[2][3] However, more controversial has been Tan's historical conception:[4]

When the Qing dynasty had succeeded in unifying the country by the 1750s [...] the historical development of several millennia towards establishing China's territorial extent had been completed. All those nationalities which have lived within that territory are historically Chinese nationalities, and all the political entities established by these nationalities are historical parts of China.

— Tan Qixiang, "General Compiling Principles", The Historical Atlas of China

This vision has been criticized as anachronistically projecting 20th-century minority policy and border claims into the distant past, resulting in a distorted view of the history of peripheral areas, portraying their incorporation into China as an inevitable organic process, rather than the result of conquest.[3] Similarly, early states are often given overly precise and extensive outer borders, often based on contentious claims.[5][6] In his afterword to volume 8, written in 1987, Tan regretted expanding the borders of Chinese empires to encompass jimi and tusi regimes.[7]

These Wikipedia maps are drawn after The Historical Atlas of China (1982).

• 
  Qin empire (210 BCE)
• 
  Han commanderies and kingdoms (2 CE)
• 
  Han civilisation (2 CE)
• 
  Ming dynasty (1580)

• General History of Chinese Administrative Divisions, a 13-volume series envisioned by Tan Qixiang and completed by his students

• Chinese Civilization in Time and Space: a project at Academia Sinica, Taiwan, based on a vectorization of Tan's atlas.