A Note on Measures, Romanization, and Translations
Elisabeth Köll · Harvard University Press eBooks · 2019
A Note on Mea sures, Romanization, and TranslationsThe primary and secondary sources I consulted for this book use a mix of kilo meters and miles.For con ve nience, I converted all to American miles (1 mile = 1.6 km).All tonnage figures for freight transport are given in metric tons.I have used the Pinyin system of romanization for Chinese terms throughout the book.The only exceptions are certain Chinese names of places or people that are more familiar to En glish readers in other romanizations, such as Canton (instead of Guangzhou), Chiang Kai-shek (instead of Jiang Jieshi), or Sun Yat-sen (instead of Sun Zhongshan), especially for the pre-1949 period.The diff er ent romanizations in Western-language correspondence, documents, and published sources of the names of railroad lines during the pre-1949 period can sometimes be confusing.I introduce the railroads by their conventional romanized names used at the time of their construction (for example, the Tientsin-Pukow Railroad) and thereafter use the Pinyin name (Tianjin-Pukou) to refer to the line during the remainder of the discussion.