Well-field system

Chinese historical land distribution method

The well-field system was a Chinese land redistribution method existing between the ninth century BCE to around the Warring States period. Though Mencius describes examples from the Xia and Shang dynasties, these could be mythological or imagined. The name comes from Chinese character 井 (jǐng), which means 'well' and looks like the # symbol; this character represents the theoretical appearance of land division: a square area of land was divided into nine identically sized sections; the eight outer sections were privately cultivated by farmers, or nong in Chinese, one of the occupations of the four occupations system; and the center section was communally cultivated on behalf of the government, or in some cases, the landowning aristocrat or duke.

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