Chinese National Geography

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A Cover of CNG

Chinese National Geography (Chinese: 中国国家地理) is a Chinese monthly magazine similar to the [[National Geographic Magazine]].

[edit] History

It was founded in January 1950 by a group of teachers with an interest in geography under the name “Di Li Zhi Shi”(Knowledge of Geography). At first only 600 copies were printed but it immediately became popular and soon 2000 copies of each volume were being printed. The government of The People's Republic of China was soon aware of the development of the magazine and approved of its publication through official letters and in 1951, the undersecretary of Chinese Central Propaganda Department Xu Teli even held a face-to-face meeting with the magazine group.

From August-December 1960, “Di li Zhi Shi” temporarily stopped publication. It reformed in January 1961 and continued publishing, but with a new name “Di Li” (geography). It was positioned as an intermediate periodic publication. The content became long-winded and not logically connected to the interest of the public. Due to this, the title of magazine changed back to “Di Li Zhi Shi” again in 1966. However, their effort proved to be meaningless since an unpredictable event happened in China - “The Cultural Revolution”. Almost all the publications were forced to stop publication, including “Di Li Zhi Shi”.

Six years later in 1972, “The Cultural Revolution” in China ended and “Di Li Zhi Shi” resumed publication and reached the circulation of 400 thousand. The content of magazine was divided into 3 parts: local geography, foreign and fundamental knowledge about geography. Each copy contained 32 pages, for price of 0.13 ￥.

After 1993 the magazine was printed in colour in a bid to regain some of the readers it lost to other publications in the 1980s.