Vegegraphy, a newly-created term in this paper and a compound word of prefix “vege-” of “vegetation” and suffix of “-graphy”, is a series of monographs that describe detailedly species composition, structures, functions, environmental settings, and distribution of a set of plant communities and/or their combinations for each vegetation type, using community data from vegetation survey. Its compilation is very huge, comprehensive, time-consuming research project, and great importance in the ecological research, vegetation restoration and utilization, biodiversity conservation, and environmental monitoring. This article first documents major community characteristics (i.e., species composition, structures, physiognomy, and dynamics), and historical development and current state of vegetation survey in China and worldwide, then reviews historical studies on vegetation classification systems and their revisions, and finally discusses compilation of vegetation of China and classification of vegetation types used for the compilation. For the revision of vegetation classification systems, we mainly revised high-level units of previous classification systems and the corresponding English terms. Following this revised classification system, the hierarchical level of China’s vegetation classification is expressed as high-level units (Vegetation Formation Group, Vegetation Formation, and Vegetation Subformation), medium-level units (Alliance Group, Alliance, and Suballiance), and lower-level units (Association Group and Association), respectively. In the Vegetation Formation Group unit, nine types were divided as Forest, Shrubland, Herbaceous vegetation, Desert, Swamp & Aquatic Vegetation, Alpine Tundra & Sparse Vegetation, Cultivated Vegetation, Urban Vegetation, and Non-Vegetated Area. For the compilation of vegetation of China and the classification of vegetation types, we used the high-level unit, Vegetation Formation, as the Volume of the vegegraphy, and used a specific term, “Vegetation type”, as the Issue under the Volume. The Vegetation type here is not a real vegetation classification unit but is a combination of a set of vegetation units (i.e., Vegetation Subformation and/or Alliance Group and/or Alliance) in which there exist the same or similar constructive species or the same dominant taxa (species or genus) in the communities. The determination of “Vegetation type” follows the four principles: identity of dominant taxa and life form, relative importance of habitats, difference of vegetation characteristics and application, and practicability of vegegraphy. As a result, the vegetation of China (Vegegraphy of China) completed will be composed of 48 volumes and about 110 issues.

Vegegraphy, a compound word of prefix “vege-” of “vegetation” and suffix of “-graphy” (description), is a series of monographs that describe species composition, structures, functions, distribution and environmental settings of a set of plant communities and/or their combinations. The Vegegraphy of China, which will be composed of 48 volumes and about 110 issues, is the first version to describe the medium-level units (Alliance Group, Alliance) and the lower-level units (Association Group, Association), and summarizes the higher-level units (Vegetation Formation Group, Vegetation Formation, Vegetation Subformation) in the Chinese Vegetation Classification System. The description of the higher-level units is highly generalized, mainly based on the data and evidences from the classification and description of the medium- and the lower-level classification units of the Chinese vegetation classification system, focusing on the geographic distribution, natural environment, community physiognomy, vegetation type and diversity, dominant species, values for biodiversity conservation, and the status of current vegetation resources at the scales of both worldwide and China. It is an important revision and expansion of the relevant content of Vegetation of China (1980) and will be the most authoritative and accurate description of the basic characteristics of Chinese vegetation. Alliance Group in each issue is briefly described on geographical distribution, natural environment, vegetation types, significance and conservation etc. Alliance as a key medium- level unit is to be described on several aspects, i.e., geographical distribution, natural environment, ecological characteristics, vegetation composition, vegetation structure, vegetation types and characteristics, biological characteristics of dominant species, biomass and productivity, vegetation dynamics and succession, and significance and conservation. As a core content of the above mentioned aspects, vegetation classification and description are conducted under the guidance of the “80 scheme” of Vegetation of China, using vegetation survey data as credentials to quantitatively differentiate vegetation types accordingly. Specifically, a vegetation classification scheme is determined based on supraterraneous stratification, and a set of diagnostic species while vegetation descriptions focus on physiognomy, community structure, species composition, including quantitative features of dominant species, companion species, constant species and accidental species, as well as their environmental preferences. In this study, we first put forward a code of vegetation nomenclature for the medium-level units (Alliance Group, Alliance) and the lower-level units (Association Group, Association) in the Chinese Vegetation Classification System. According to this vegetation nomenclature, the name of a vegetation type is composed of the name of a diagnostic species (may also be a dominant species) of each layer of the vegetation type and the name of the higher-level units (Vegetation Formation or Vegetation Formation Group) to which it belongs, which guarantees both scientific soundness and practical sense of the vegetation nomenclature. Contents and protocols for the research and editing of “Vegegraphy of China”, including vegetation survey and sample collection, literature compilation, climate, soil and topography data collection and compilation, vegetation classification, vegetation nomenclature, vegetation description outlines, are elaborated or exemplified in detail.