Li Zheng (b. 1969, Quanzhou) is a historian of maritime Asia whose work explores port cities, cartography, and everyday life along coastal frontiers. He earned a B.A. in history from Peking University and a Ph.D. in Asian history with a focus on seaborne networks, and has held teaching and research posts in Hong Kong and Singapore. He mines lighthouse logs, hydrographic surveys, ship registers, and customs archives across East Asia and Europe, and frequently partners with local museums to record oral histories from shipwrights, pilots, and preparators. His writing ranges from peer‑reviewed studies to narrative histories for general readers, including Fading Horizons, which examined coastal governance and informal trade across Qing and colonial boundaries.
Li Zheng lives between Xiamen and Hong Kong, balancing months in archives with fieldwork on smaller islands. He travels by local ferries to lighthouse islets to interview keepers' families, photograph weathered specimen labels, and survey derelict quarantine stations. He collaborates with institutions in Quanzhou, Hong Kong, and Singapore on cataloging projects and community exhibitions, and mentors students working with Chinese Maritime Customs records alongside Portuguese, Malay, and Hokkien sources.
