The history of Chinese dialectology includes four major aspects: traditional dialectological research before the end of the Qing Dynasty, the descriptions and records of Chinese dialects written by western missionaries in China from the second half of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, the research of ethnologists, and modern dialectology which focuses on dialect description. However, these four aspects have not shown any apparent relationship of succession or mutual influence. Modern dialectology is directly derived from western dialectology and incorporates the findings of traditional Chinese phonology in phonetic investigation and study. Therefore, this chapter will briefly introduce western dialectology before discussing the four major aspects of Chinese dialectology’s history.