CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

Lei Prefecture

historical administrative division in Guangdong, China

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 21, 2024
Entity authorityQ10565872
Source-derived summary

Leizhou or Lei Prefecture was a zhou (prefecture) in imperial China in Leizhou Peninsula, Guangdong. It existed from 634 to 1329, but between 742 and 758 it was known as Haikang Commandery (also translated as Haikang Prefecture).

The modern county-level city Leizhou retains its name.

Counties

Lei Prefecture administered the following counties (縣) through history:

Haikang (海康), roughly modern Leizhou.

Suixi (遂溪), roughly modern Suixi County, Guangdong and Mazhang District, Zhanjiang. Suixi was created in 742 by merging two counties, Tiepa (鐵杷) and Shenchuan (椹川).

Xuwen (徐聞), roughly modern Xuwen County.

References

Shi Weile, ed. (2005). Zhongguo Lishi Diming Da Cidian (中国历史地名大词典) [Large Dictionary of Chinese Historical Place Names] (in Chinese).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Lei Prefecture” is historical administrative division in Guangdong, China. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Prefecture, historical and administrative, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1329, 2005—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Prefecture, historical and administrative is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “historical administrative division in Guangdong, China” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 21, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q10565872. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1329 and 2005.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Lei Prefecture”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Lei Prefecture primary sources, Lei Prefecture archive and Prefecture research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lei Prefecture”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Lei Prefecture” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.