The well-field system or well-and-field system (Chinese: 井田制度; pinyin: jǐngtián zhìdù) was a Chinese land redistribution method existing between the eleventh or tenth century BCE (Western Zhou dynasty) to around the Warring States period. Though Mencius describes examples from the Xia and Shang dynasties, these could be mythological or imagined, and credited King Wen of Zhou as one of the persons enacting the system. The name comes from Chinese character 井 (jǐng), which means 'well' and looks like the # symbol; this character represents the theoretical appearance of land division: a square area of land was divided into nine identically sized sections; the eight outer sections (私田; sītián) were privately cultivated by farmers, or nong in Chinese, one of the occupations of the four occupations system; and the center section (公田; gōngtián) was communally cultivated on behalf of the government, or in some cases, the landowning aristocrat or duke.
While all fields were government- or aristocrat-owned, the private fields were managed exclusively by farmers and the produce was entirely the farmers'. It was only produce from the communal fields, worked on by all eight families, that went to the government for famine distribution or the aristocrats and which, in turn, could go to the king as tribute.
