East Asian Rice Cultivation System

Timeline

1. c. -500–1000Taihu Lake basin · JiangnanJiangnan developed standardized procedures of pond and bund irrigation, seedling-bed raising, and paddy transplanting; after the Song dynasty, double cropping spread, establishing the technical paradigm of intensive East Asian rice cultivation.
2. 1661–1670Songjiang Prefecture · JiangnanAfter the early Qing encouraged settlement of wasteland and repaired waterworks, Jiangnan again became the empire's granary; the rice-wheat double-cropping system and compound ecosystems such as mulberry-dike fish ponds fully resumed operation in the early Kangxi reign.
3. 1661–1670Kinai basin · KinaiThe Tokugawa shogunate measured rice output in koku; paddy fields in the Kinai and western Japan maintained intensive cultivation, and varietal selection and fertilization techniques (such as plant ash and compost) were already quite mature by the mid-17th century.
4. 1665–1670Red River Delta · Red River DeltaThe rice districts of Korea's Hwanghae and Jeolla provinces, Vietnam's Red River Delta, and waterworks maintenance under the Joseon dynasty and the Later Lê dynasty together constituted the regional diversity of the East Asian rice system in the mid-17th century.