清代后期西方人笔下的西安城——基于英文文献的考察

Xi'an City during Late Qing Dynasty in the View of Westerners——Based on English Literatures

清代后期前往西安城从事传教、考察、游历、行医等活动的欧美人士数量众多,其日记、游记、调查报告等是复原清代后期西安城社会生活、城市景观的重要参考文献。在西方人笔下,清代西安城作为中国西部之都,城高池深,人口众多,各省移民和多民族人口聚居,城区布局严整;作为西北商贸集散中心和亚洲商道节点,西安城贾通八方,商业繁荣,贸易额巨大。相关英文文献的深入发掘和研究,不仅有益于复原清末西安的城市面貌,更可藉此了解19世纪后期至20世纪初期西方世界对于西安城的认识与评价。

During the late Qing Dynasty, many westerners who were missionaries, explorers, doctors, journalists went to Xi＇an to engage in related activities and wrote lots of books, journals, letters and articles. These valuable English literatures are very useful for Chinese historians to know the past social life and city landscape of Xi＇an city in Qing Dynasty. In the viewpoint of westerners, Xi＇an was the capital of northwest China which had strong city wall, huge population, a lot of immi-grations and many ethnic groups. As the commercial center of northwest China and the pivotal site of Asian business route, the trade in Xi＇an was prosperous. To dig and research relevant English litera-tures further will be helpful for recovering the condition of Xi＇an in late Qing Dynasty and improving the understanding on westerners＇evaluation to Xi＇an in late 19 Century and early 20 Century.