Some of them did, but it was not the prevailing belief. 1) "In ancient China, the prevailing belief was that the earth was flat and square, while the Heavens were round, an assumption which remained dominant until the introduction of European astronomy in the 17th century. In the Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD) text of the Da Dai Li Ji (大戴禮記) (Records of Ritual Matters by Dai Senior), it quotes the earlier Zeng Shen (505 BC-436 BC) replying to a question of Shanchu Li, admitting that it was hard to conceptualize the orthodox Chinese view of the four corners of the earth and how they could be properly covered. Earlier conjectures that Zhang Heng (78-139 AD) theorized that the universe was in the oval shape of a hen's egg, and the earth itself was like the curved yolk within, have been refuted by the English sinologist Cullen: In a passage of Zhang Heng's cosmogony not translated by Needham, Chang himself says: "Heaven takes its body from the Yang, so it is round and in motion. Earth takes its body from the Yin, so it is flat and quiescent". The point of the egg analogy is simply to stress that the earth is completely enclosed by heaven, rather than merely covered from above as the kai t'ien describes. Chinese astronomers, many of them brilliant men by any standards, continued to think in flat-earth terms until the seventeenth century; this surprising fact might be the starting-point for a re-examination of the apparent facility with which the idea of a spherical earth found acceptance in fifth-century B.C. Greece. In the 17th century, due to the influence of the Jesuits, who held high positions as astronomers at the Chinese court, the idea of a spherical earth spread in China. Thus, shortly after the collapse of the Ming Dynasty, the Ge Chi Cao treatise of Xiong Ming-yu was written (1648 AD), and showed a printed picture of the earth as a spherical globe, with the text stating that "The Round Earth certainly has no Square Corners". The text also pointed out that sailing ships could return to their port of origin after circumnavigating the waters of the earth. Xiong Ming-yu, in order to persuade the elite class of his time, harkened back to ideas of the Hun Tian theorists to defend his ideas, with the earth 'as round as a crossbow bullet' ('yuan ru dan wan')." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#China_and_the_Far_East 2) "The later Song Dynasty scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) used the models of lunar eclipse and solar eclipse in order to prove that the celestial bodies were round, not flat. This was actually an extension of the reasoning of Jing Fang and other theorists as early as the Han Dynasty. In his Dream Pool Essays of 1088 AD, Shen related a conversation he had with the Director of the Astronomical Observatory, who had asked Shen if the shapes of the sun and moon were round like balls or flat like fans. Shen Kuo explained his reasoning for the former: If they were like balls they would surely obstruct each other when they met. I replied that these celestial bodies were certainly like balls. How do we know this? By the waxing and waning of the moon. The moon itself gives forth no light, but is like a ball of silver; the light is the light of the sun (reflected). When the brightness is first seen, the sun (-light passes almost) alongside, so the side only is illuminated and looks like a crescent. When the sun gradually gets further away, the light shines slanting, and the moon is full, round like a bullet. If half of a sphere is covered with (white) powder and looked at from the side, the covered part will look like a crescent; if looked at from the front, it will appear round. Thus we know that the celestial bodies are spherical." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_astronomy 3) "The philosopher Wang Chong argued against the 'radiating influence' theory of Jing Fang's writing in the 1st century BC and that of the astronomer Zhang Heng (78–139), the latter two of whom correctly hypothesized that the brightness of the moon was merely light reflected from the sun. Jing Fang had written in the 1st century BC of how it was long accepted in China that the sun and moon were spherical in shape ('like a crossbow bullet'), not flat. Shen Kuo also wrote of solar and lunar eclipses in this manner, yet expanded upon this to explain why the celestial bodies were spherical, going against the 'flat earth' theory for celestial bodies. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Shen Kuo supported a round earth theory, which was introduced into Chinese science by Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi in the 17th century. When the Director of the Astronomical Observatory asked Shen Kuo if the shapes of the sun and moon were round like balls or flat like fans, Shen Kuo explained that celestial bodies were spherical because of knowledge of waxing and waning of the moon. Much like what Zhang Heng had said, Shen Kuo likened the moon to a ball of silver, which does not produce light, but simply reflects light if provided from another source (the sun). He explained that when the sun's light is slanting, the moon appears full. He then explained if one were to cover any sort of sphere with white powder, and then viewed from the side it would appear to be a crescent, hence he reasoned that celestial bodies were spherical." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_Kuo