The regionalization of Chinese archaeological cultures in historic times is greatly different from that of prehistoric ones, which resulted mainly from the transformation of social structure and the political system. From the Qin and Han period onward, due to the influence of centralism and cultural multiformity, Chinese archaeological cultures in historic times were differentiated according to the regional features comformable to the regulations of the central ceremonial system and at the same time characteristic of different cultural types. Therefore, the culturo-geographical regionalization recorded in Chinese historical documents plays an important role as reference material in the regionalization of Chinese archaeology of historic times.
