Entrusted by Lin Zexu, Wei Yuan wrote a comprehensive work on world geography and history. The proposition of "learning from foreigners to conquer foreigners" has broken the traditional cultural values that distinguish foreigners from Xia, abandoned the historical and geographical concepts of "Eight Wastes in Kyushu", "A Round Place in Heaven" and "China Center", established new knowledge of world historical geography of "Five continents and Four Oceans", spread modern natural science knowledge and other cultural styles, social systems and customs, and broadened the horizons of Chinese people.

2. Contribution influence

In the modern history of China, Atlas of the Ocean is the first detailed and systematic work on world history. China began to introduce the knowledge of world history when he pushed Sima Qian's Historical Records in the Western Han Dynasty. Since then, many foreign biographies have appeared in the official history, but most of these records are concentrated in countries bordering China. Yao Ying's Chronicles of Four Continents and Travel Notes of Kang Qi only appeared in modern times. Chronicle of Four Continents is a pure translation, while Travels of Jian Kang is a miscellaneous note. However, The Map of Sea Country not only makes up for the deficiencies in compilation and content of The Map of Four Continents and The Travels of Kang Qi, but also initially forms its own structure and theoretical method, and is regarded as the pioneer of China people in discussing world history.

3. Introduction to the author

Wei Yuan (1794 ~ 1857), a famous scholar, was an enlightenment thinker, politician and writer in modern China, and was born in Shaoyang, Hunan. As a thinker and advocate of new ideas in the late Qing Dynasty,

Gan Long (1April 23rd, 794) was born in Jintan, Shaoyang County, Hunan Province on March 24th, and died in Hangzhou on March 1st, 2007 (1March 26th, 857).

Wei Yuan's works are rich, including Wu Sheng Ji, A New History of Yuan Dynasty, Poems of Qing Ye Zhai, Poems of Gu Weitang and Poems of Mo Zhen, etc.