Fortified settlements and the settlement system in the Northern Zone of the Han Empire Chen Bo 1,2 & Gideon Shelach 1 Beijing 0 km 2000 N How far are settlement patterns affected by imperial systems of administration and control? The prototype city state consisted perhaps only of the population centre and its surrounding hinterland, but large territorial states, and still more empires, required complex systems of government and defence. Historical sources tell of the Chinese imperial system of ‘commanderies’ or provinces, and ‘county seats’ or subordinate centres, but this may conceal a range of local variations and development histories that only detailed archaeological survey can reveal. In this study, devoted to the Northern Zone of the Han Empire close to its border with the troublesome Xiongnu, a four-fold hierarchy of walled settlements is presented which varies in its character, origins and development even within this single zone. Many of its special features can be attributed to the pressures and insecurities of the border setting, and are the direct result of Han imperial planning. Keywords: China, Western Han, Eastern Han, commanderies, county seats, Xiongnu, cities, walled sites Introduction The Han Empire, one of the first dynasties to unite China, has been studied by Chinese scholars, historians and officials for some 2000 years, and continues to attract attention from Chinese and non-Chinese scholars alike (Loewe 1987a; Lewis 2006). The ideal of a united empire evolved during a time of disunity and was first achieved during the short lived Qin Empire (221–210 BC), before being fully realised and stabilised 1 Department of East Asian Studies, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91905, Israel 2 School of History, Zhengzhou University, 100 Science Road, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, 450001 China C  Antiquity Publications Ltd. ANTIQUITY 88 (2014): 222–240 http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/088/ant0880222.htm 222