Geographical Resonance: A Narrative Review on the Geographical Influence in Northern and Southern Chinese Folk Songs

Folk songs, as a vital component of China’s intangible cultural heritage, have long reflected the country’s geographical and cultural diversity. Over the past decade, scholarship has increasingly examined how regional environments, languages, and social practices shape the formation and transformation of folk song traditions. This article presents a narrative review of 65 studies published between 2014 and 2024, drawing on both English and Chinese sources identified through Google Scholar and CNKI. The synthesis highlights three major trends. First, the enduring north–south binary continues to structure much research, but its explanatory power is limited in transition zones and hybrid repertoires. Second, micro-regional and ethnic-minority perspectives reveal the significance of linguistic prosody, ritual practice, labor rhythms, and migration histories, complicating environment-based explanations. Third, processes of heritagization, tourism, and state policy have increasingly reshaped folk songs, creating tensions between preservation, transformation, and commodification. The review argues that while geography remains a useful heuristic, explanatory frameworks must integrate environmental, linguistic, ritual, migratory, and institutional factors. By clarifying these dynamics, the article contributes to music geography and ethnomusicology, offering methodological directions for future research and practical insights for heritage preservation.