The borders of provinces, or zhou (州) remained relatively static throughout the Han Dynasty.

Originally zhou (州，洲) referred to inhabitable areas unaffected by flood. Yu the Great, legendary master of floods famously established nine zhou (九州). These were Qing, Yan, Yu, Yang, Jing, Liang, Yi, Ji and Xu. Traditionally three more zhou are associated with the original nine - Bing (并), You (幽) and Ying (營).

Throughout most of the Han Dynasty, all twelve provinces existed except for Ying. The central metropolitan administrative region was known was Sili. A province-level entity in the far south, known as Jiaozhi, was never referred to as zhou.

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