Abstract: Urban history is different from urban historiography. The former is an object of study, whereas the latter, is a subdivision within the modern discipline of historiography. Urban historiography studies the origin, development, and transformation of cities as well as the process of urbanization from the perspective of historiography. The rise of urban historiography results from the great impact of rapid urbanization upon society, the rapid development of historiography, and the influence of other academic disciplines. Arising since the end of World War Ⅱ, "urban historiography" as a discipline has been generally accepted in the academic circle. It is giving inspirations to observe the transformations of human civilization from the urban perspective. If stretching the time scale of urban historiography to cover the whole of the 20^th century, we may find that it has gone through several important changes as the time goes by. Therefore, critical studies of urban historiography for the purpose of learning experience from others and establishing our own theoretical frames and conceptual systems of urban historiography are theoretically and practically significant.

Key words: urban history, urban historiography, urban studies, transformation