Tu Fu once said, "Even if the nation should be destroyed, the mountains and rivers will remain." The Chinese people are well aware of the grandeur in the geography of their land. Chinese civilization has developed over thousands of years in an environment composed of five mountain ranges forming a crisscrossing grid and whose "upland" accounts for eighty-five percent of the country, leaving a mere fifteen percent of land available for farming. In addition to the mountains is the element of water. There run three great rivers and their tributaries that flow into the East China Sea, with the East China Sea accounting for China's entire eastern border. These geographical features have long been ingrained into their culture. The view of landscape, as well as villages, have long been partitioned by the mountains and the rivers and ocean have long played a part in fertility and deployment of goods. The fascination with such environmental elements as discussed in the former can been seen reflected in the Chinese garden as well as many other elements of importance to their culture.
             The desire for and luxury of having a garden in China grew out of the lack of ownable land. Starting from the beginning of society all farmable land was being carefully used and recycled to feed the growing population through hunting and farming. Then thorough time hunting was stopped and the population piled up in both the countryside and in large cities which developed though thoughtful organization. The repercussions of this are threefold; first, gardens created a space to retreat to in such crowded conditions; second, the gardens needed to be designed in such a way as to maxamize the asthetic capabilities in a limited spaces; and thirdly, these spaces needed to appear in contrast with the planned space. Hense owning land soaley for personal, aesthetic pursposes in China developed as an attribute to the wealthy.
             The earliest conceptual 'Chinese garden' ...