China's Língqú 灵渠 Magic Transport Canal: Context, Origin, Design, and Significance.

One aim of historical geography is to understand and explain how specific cultural features emerged, diffused, evolved, and affected the landscapes and cultures into which they were incorporated. The focus of this paper is the summit-crossing ("watershed") transportation canal. Now recognized as the world's first summit transportation canal, China's Língqú 灵渠 Magic Transport Canal is 2,240 years old, dating from the year 214 BCE. "Re-discovered" for the Western world by Joseph Needham more than fifty years ago, its origin, context, design, and significance remain obscure. What innovations are embodied in the Língqú? How did its technology change landscapes, cultures, and the relationship of people with their environment? This paper brings together what is known of the canal, followed by a comprehensive summary of the Língqú's significance in the context of human history--the ingenious engineering of its invention, its role in the unification and creation of China, the diffusion of its concept to Europe where summit canals became critical enablers of the Industrial Revolution, and its contribution to the early development of today's worldwide transportation network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]