在四部分类法中，明代山川志划归史部地理类，其内容有大量文学成分，具有比较突出的文学性质。明代山川志中的文学内容是景观认知的表述，也是地方知识。通过系统地编写文学内容，山川志构建了关于地方景观的全面的知识体系。
一方面，山川志的作者将自己的景观认知和游览体验知识化、公共化。作者用碎片化的风景描写和游记式写作较为详尽地介绍景观特点。不同于一般的山水散文和游记，这些个人体验的书写自写作之初就具有知识生产的动机。同时，作者以自己的主观感受和地理观察为读者提供较实用的旅游信息。山川志中有对景观的主观品评和对游时的个人判断，并且特别关注到山水空间中的旅游活动和相关设施。这些内容不仅体现了作者对风景之美与游览体验更高的追求，更是作者预设的读者需求，反映了明代中后期的旅游风尚以及文人共享的文化趣味。
另一方面，山川志通过编纂传说和诗文对这些知识进行系统化的构造，展现了文学内容对后世景观认知的影响以及对地理景观的形塑，体现了文学内容作为地方知识的意义。地方传说于时人而言是重要的地方知识和历史记忆。文人通过传说认识和感受地方景观，并以自己的写作实践强化了景观的传说文化内涵，生成新的地方知识，吸引更多人进行文学再生产。不仅在场的文学实践生成了地理知识，文学的景观认知和地理想象也是一种地理解释和地方知识。被群体接受和认同之后，这种知识就具有了有效性，对于后人观览风景的方式有着深远的影响，并且构建了实际的地理景观。

While mountain and river gazetteers in the Ming dynasty were classified in the geography category of the history department, their contents had considerable literary components and they were of a more prominent literary nature. The literary content was expression of landscape perception as well as local knowledge. By compiling a large amount of literary content, the mountain and river gazetteers were able to build a comprehensive knowledge system about the landscape.
On the one hand, authors of mountain and river gazetteers intellectualized and publicized their personal experiences. The author used fragmented landscape descriptions and travelogue-style writing to introduce landscape features in detail. Unlike the usual landscape essays and travelogues, these personal experiences were written with the motive of knowledge production from the very beginning of writing. At the same time, the authors provided readers with more practical tourist information using their own subjective feelings and geographical observations. Mountain and river gazetteers contained subjective tastes of the landscape and personal judgments about the traveling time, and paid special attention to the tourist activities and related facilities in the scenery spot. These contents not only reflected the authors' higher pursuit of the beauty of the landscape and the touring experience, but also the readers' needs presumed by the author,reflecting the vogue for travel in the middle and late Ming dynasty and the cultural interests shared by the literati.
On the other hand, mountain and river gazetteers systematically constructed this knowledge by compiling legends and poems, showing the influence of literary content on later generations’ geographical perception and the shaping of the landscape, reflecting the significance of literary content as local knowledge. Local legends were important local knowledge and historical memories for the people of their times. The literati recognized and sensed local landscapes through the legends, and also strengthened the cultural connotation of the legends in the landscape through their own writing practice, generating new local knowledge and attracting more people to literary reproduction. Besides writing in the physical presence as a kind of knowledge production, literary landscape perception and geographical imagination was also a kind of geographical interpretation and local knowledge, which had validity after being accepted and approved by the group, and had a profound influence on the way how descendants viewed the landscape, and constructed the geographical landscape.