Abstract: Mainly due to differences in historical sources and analytical perspectives，there have been two entirely different conclusions regarding the actual state of litigation in counties and prefectures in Qing China: “anti-litigious society”and“litigious society． ”The “anti-litigious society”proponents take the official standpoint and rely on government regulations and documents that advocated an ideal society without lawsuits． The“litigious society”proponents seek to ascertain the actual state of local litigation by combing through archival sources，local histories，and the magistrates' records which yield data that reflected the real lives of the common people． That the proponents of the “anti-litigious society”reflect the views of the political elites is understandable，but these same officials also undertook a series of institutional innovations to achieve their ideal reducing litigation． The anti-litigious society view should not be criticized because it was the elite political ideal，doubts existed among the elites． According to the official views and the written records，their ideal description of society did not refer to an actual measurement of the scale of litigation，but instead indicated a value judgment based on ethics and reality．