Chūzan Seikan

The Chūzan Seikan or Chūzan Sekan (中山世鑑, Okinawan:Chūzan shīkan; lit. "the reflect of the generations of Chūzan"), is the first official history of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, compiled by Shō Shōken Haneji Wōji Chōshū (向象賢 羽地王子朝秀) in year 7 of the Shunzhi era (1650) for king Shō Shitsu. It includes a preface and five volumes.

The king commissioned the book from his sessei and the members of the sanshikan. They gathered a team of former bureaucrats who specialised in ancient studies, and their edited researches were used to produce the book's genealogical trees. The political ideas in the text reflect those of the Shimazu clan, due to at least two of the compilers being associates of the clan. In 1638, the Shimazu clan had offered a copy of its own genealogical tree to Shō Sei Kin Wōji Chōtei, which probably served as a basis for the edition of the tree included in the history book.

The sources used for the book included engraved inscriptions (commemorative steles) found in the Ryūkyū Kingdom and texts from the Chinese empire, especially the Chronicles of the embassy to Ryūkyū (使琉球録) by Chinese ambassador Chen Kan (陳侃). The writing style shows an influence from Japanese war tales, such as the Tale of Hōgen. The preface and the general introduction of the book are written integrally in Chinese, but the preface uses a Japanese chronology. The five main volumes mix traditional Chinese characters and Japanese syllabary (katakana), but they only use Chinese era names.