Youzhou (ancient China)

You Prefecture or You Province, also known by its Chinese name Youzhou, was a prefecture (zhou)^[a] in northern China during its imperial era.

"You Province" was cited in some ancient sources as one of the nine or twelve original provinces of China around the 22nd century BC, but You Prefecture was used in actual administration from 106 BC to the tenth century. As is standard in Chinese, the same name "Youzhou" was also often used to describe the prefectural seat or provincial capital from which the area was administered.

You was first created in 106 BC as a province-sized prefecture during the Western Han dynasty to administer a large swath of the dynasty's northern frontier that stretched from modern-day Shanxi Province in the west and Shandong Province in the south, through northeastern Hebei Province, southern Liaoning Province and southern Inner Mongolia to Korea. The prefectural capital was the City of Ji in modern Beijing. This prefecture continued to be centered in northern Hebei through the Three Kingdoms and Western Jin dynasty.

In the Sixteen Kingdoms period, several of the kingdoms that ruled northern China used "You" to name commandery-sized prefectures in their domain. When northern China was unified under a single sovereign during the Northern dynasties, You became a commandery-sized prefecture based in modern Beijing. During the Sui dynasty, prefectures were not used as a level of administration, and You was renamed Zhuo Commandery (Zhuojun). You was revived during the Tang dynasty as a smaller, commandery prefecture; its capital Youzhou was within present-day Beijing. In the Five Dynasties period, You was one of Sixteen Prefectures ceded to the Khitans of Manchuria. Thereafter, the name You Prefecture was no longer used.

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