中国地理学会1934年创刊《地理学报》,到现在已经整整50年了。学会负责同志几次要我写点回忆文字,我感到非常兴奋;兹就学会早年历史,略谈一二。

In his reminiscence of the Aeta Geogrophia siniea the author relates the early his-tory of the Geographical Society of China.In 1909 Siang-wen Chang established the China Earth Science Socety at Tianjin and the same year saw the publication of the magazine "Earth Sciences". In 1921 Co-ching Chu headed the Department of Geology and Geography at the Southeastern University, which was renamed in 1930 as the Central University (becoming Nanjing University after liberation). At about this time departments of earth sciences, of geography, or of history and geography were set up at several famous universities. In view of this situation Co-ching Chu, Weii-hao Weng and others proposed to form a Chinese geographical society, which after a lot of preparations was formally set up in 1934 in Nanjing, known as the Geographical Society of China. Wen-hao Weng was elected president, and Co-ching Chu director. Later, the presidency was dropped, and in 1943 the author was elected to lead the board of directors.The author calculates that 11 issues of Acta Geographica Siniea were published by the Society during the years 1934-1937. The same period saw the holding of 4 annual meetings. But during the 8-year war of resistance (1937-1945), things became so difficult that the Society had to publish its journal as a yearly periodical instead of the original quarterly, and that throughout this period only one annual meeting was held.The author reviews the Society’s work of the past years. He stresses that only after the birth of new China did the Society begin to follow a road of rapid develop-ment. He feels satisfaction to recall that after liberation Dr. Co-ching Chu continued to lead the Society for more than 20 years, with the result that a great number of branch societies and geographical research institutions were set up across the country. Also he is happy about the fact that today-50 years since the founding of the So-ciety-he and a few remaining initiators still can see with their own eyes and parti-cipate in the vigorous activities of the Society and relevant organizations all over China.