How big was the territory of the Ming Dynasty?

Da Ming was the last Han Chinese-established monarchy in China's history, and at its peak it was only one step away from being a dynasty of ten thousand nations, so how big was his territory?

The boundaries of the early Ming Dynasty First of all, let's take a look at the boundaries of the early Ming Dynasty by quoting the boundary map of the Ming Dynasty in the eighth year of Xuande (1443) in the Chinese Historical Atlas, which is publicly available in China (see the map above). As can be seen from the map, the territory of the early Ming Dynasty included the following areas that are now not part of China: the Far East of Russia, about half of Burma, Bhutan, Sikkim, and 1/2 of Kashmir. However, the territory of the early Ming Dynasty did not include most of Xinjiang (nearly three-quarters of it), nearly half of Inner Mongolia, or Taiwan.

Calculated on the basis of this territory map, the area of the pre-Ming dynasty territory is about 11 million square kilometers. However, we must see that, among these boundaries of Ming Dynasty, the largest area of China's Northeast and the Far East of Russia, the Qinghai-Tibet area (including Bhutan, Kashmir, etc.), and the Hami area of Xinjiang were all tie-up areas. It belongs to Nurgan, Uszang, Xifan, Hami and so on. The so-called tie-up areas means that the central government of the Ming Dynasty did not set up any formal administrative organization and appointed the local chiefs of the ethnic minorities to manage these areas.

The only official administrative districts of the Ming Dynasty were the two capitals and thirteen Buzhengzhi. The two capitals were the capital (Beijing) and Nanjing, and the thirteen Buzhengzhi were Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Huguang, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou. Probably Li Ao and others said that the Ming Dynasty 3.5 million square kilometers of territory is this part.

II. Late Ming Dynasty territory From 1616, when Nurhachu established the Later Jin regime, the tie-up areas of the northeast of Ming Dynasty (including the northeast of China and the far east of Russia nowadays) were disconnected from the Ming Dynasty. In addition, Inner Mongolia, Hami area of Xinjiang, Qinghai and part of Gansu, and many parts of Burma also did not belong to Ming Dynasty for a long time. So, at this time, the Ming Dynasty's territory is about less than 5.7 million square kilometers

Not to mention the late period, to the end of the run to the coast.