During the last fifty years, Acta Geographica Sinica, the academic quarterly of the Chinese Geographical Society, has undergone many changes. Only three years after its first publication, the Japanese invasion forced an eight-year war upon China. Publication of the journal was continued but with only one issue per year. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, and in the following years of the civil war, the publi-cation lingered on but not at full strength. The founding of the people’s Eepublie in 1949 saw a period of rehabilitation, but publication was still rather irregular.In 1953, the First Five Year Plan of Socialist Reeonstration began and it was only then that the Journal came into full swing. That was a period of steady progress. However, a hard time of three years of natural disaster intruded, and again the publi-cation was nearly suspended. Once passed that time, recovery was speedy, and edito-rial work regained its momentum in the following years.Once again though, unfortunately, the whole country was taken by storm in the so-called "Cultural Revolution’’ from 1966 to 1976. Publication of Acta Geographica Sinica as well as of other academic journals was suspended. It was not until 1978 that a new revival of all academic periodicals appeared. In the case of geography, not only was Acta Geographica Sinica resurrected, but several other new geographical ma-gazines also began to flourish. Now we are quite aware that a nev,* stage in the deve-lopment of a Socialist culture has been ushered in, and things are developing at full strength. It is at this moment that we celebrate the fifty years anniversary of the-publication of the Acta Geographica Sinica. The tenacity of purpose, and the ever last:ng unity of the idea as illustrated by the fifty years history of Acta Geographica Sinica gives us full confidence in the future development of our science and culture. This should not only benefit our own people. We are also obliged to make our con-tribution to the cultural development of the whole mankind.