Under the influence of the preQin political strategists, there were a large group of capable officials and advisors good at commenting on the state’s spatial situation in society of the West Han Dynasty. By summarizing the lessons from the downfall of the Zhou and the Qin Dynasty, these officials and advisors brought forward their representative spatial perception based on the spatial situation of the current society and helped the rulers work out a series of policies as regards the basic fact of powerful central government and weak local governments to strengthen centralism and improve the relationship between central and local governments. The law of growth and change of cities in the West Han days revealed the contemporary level of spatial perception and imperial control of space. And the essential reason for development of cities resulted just from the central power’s control and possession of local space and proved an agreement between theory of regional space and the state’s practice of controlling space.

cities in the West Han Dynasty；spatial perception; state control