天圆地平说是一种远古的原始的宇宙学说;中国古代的浑天说,是其中实例。它认为,天是一个以观测地点为球心的球体;地是一个同心的圆形平面。地面的突出的包括中部的陆地和四周的平面海洋,并把球形的天分成可见的地上半球和不可见的地下半球。这种学说为古代各国所共有,这就是它的世界性;但是,天和地的共同中心,却因地点而不同,这就是它的地方性。

The theory of spherical leaven and plane earth (天圆地平说) in remote antiquity was a kind of primitive cosmologieal hypotheses, of which the Huntian Theory (浑天说) in ancient China was an outstanding model. This theory held that the heaven is a sphere with the place of odservation as its center and the earth a concentric circular plane. Furthermore the earth consists of a land mass in its central area and a ring-shaped ocean in its margin and disects the heaven into a visible upper hemisphere and an invisible lower hemisphere.This paper pays special attention to its universalism and localism.This theory appeared not only in ancien.t China hut also in the western worldjsuch as Babylonia and ancient Greece. Our country placed stress on the spherical heaven and expressed it with a celestial globe (浑天象). On the contrary,the western world put emphasis on the circular plane earth and showed it with a wneel-ahaped world map.This is its universalism.In different areas,this theory had different centers of the earth surface. Eor example, ancient Chinese scholars took Yang Cheng(阳城), the first capital of Xia dynasty, as the center of the world, whereas ancient Greek philosophers considered their home-land as the common center of the spherical heaven and the circular earth This is the localism of this theory.