Abstract: [Purpose/Significance] Ancient map literature is an important component of Chinese ancient literature, which is the subjective cognition, expression, exploration, and recording of the objective environment by ancient ancestors. It mainly uses map language such as symbols, text, graphics, and lines to depict simple geographical spatial information locally on physical carriers such as clay tablets, stone tablets, woodcuts, silk, and paper. It records and carries the glorious process of civilization continuation and cultural inheritance in China for thousands of years. How to better do a good job in its digital protection and development and utilization is an important issue worth paying attention to in the current field of information resource management. [Method/Process] On the basis of a brief exposition of the cultural connotations and important values of ancient map literature, this article briefly summarizes the current status of its digital research, and then designs and proposes a knowledge-based description framework for ancient map literature in China in the digital age. This framework clarifies the key modules of resource entities, description objects, knowledge abstraction, map expression, map display, etc. of ancient map literature, and analyzes the relevant key modules separately, Finally, taking the "Wanli Coastal Defense Map" drawn in Volume 8 of Zheng Kaiyang's Miscellaneous Works as an example, typical application scenarios such as automatic question and answer services for ancient map literature knowledge, intelligent construction services for the South China Sea rights protection evidence chain, and interactive narrative services for ancient map literature were explored. [Results/Conclusions] Chinese ancient maps and texts showcase the expression and cognition of ancient Chinese ancestors towards the real physical world and geographical space through methods such as landscape painting, six body drawing, planning, and triangulation. They not only carry the excellent genes of China's thousands of years of Chinese civilization and excellent traditional culture, but also serve as important carriers for telling Chinese stories, spreading Chinese spirit, and showcasing China's image; The intervention of mathematical theory and technology has expanded the object space of ancient maps from traditional binary space to a diverse space composed of geographic space, cultural space, information space, and technological space; The knowledge-based description of ancient map literature in the era of digital intelligence requires a comprehensive understanding of all entities, elements, and knowledge related to it, achieving cross domain knowledge organization and integration centered on its geographic spatial information (such as place names, divisions, and locations), involving the identification, extraction, analysis, organization, association, positioning, and transformation of relevant contextual information. This makes the universality of this theoretical framework still need to be strengthened, In the future, it is necessary to continuously expand the existing theoretical and technical framework to meet the knowledge-based description needs of different types of ancient map literature.

Key words: digital intelligence era, ancient map documents, digital humanities, knowledge based description, historical geographic informatization