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Possibly the first dynasty in ancient China, it's generally believed that the Xia Dynasty consisted of several clans living alongside the Yellow River. Most of the evidence for the Xia Dynasty, including its name, is perhaps just legend.
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Chinese civilization began along the Yellow River in the Shang era, and spread from there when Bronze Age culture reached its peak. Then, traditional Chinese philosophies, such as Confucianism and Daoism, developed in the feudal Zhou era as China expanded in territory and population. Ancient China finally fractured into warring kingdoms for 200 years, and its reunification marked the start of the imperial China age.
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The Shang Dynasty was the first to have historical records remaining. Many bronze objects and jade articles, which date back to 1600 BC, have been found to support these early archaeological records. The earliest form of Chinese writing – oracle bones – was found. The inscriptions on animal bones had pictographic characters. The Shang Dynasty’s capital was Yin (Anyang) and its territory stretched between the lower reaches of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers.
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After the Shang era, the larger Zhou era territory was divided by a network of feudal states and was ruled over by kings. The king of Zhou only had direct control over a small portion of the realm and received tributes from the feudal states. Major philosophies and religions emerged that were the basis of Chinese beliefs in later eras, such as Confucianism and Daoism.
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Confucius was born probably in 551 B.C. (lunar calendar) in present-day Qufu, Shandong Province, China.
Confucius, also known as Kong Qui or K’ung Fu-tzu, was a Chinese philosopher, teacher and political figure. His teachings, preserved in the Analects, focused on creating ethical models of family and public interaction and setting educational standards. -
The Qin and Han dynasties were the initial period of the Chinese empire. During this period, a number of institutions were established that laid the foundation of the basic political system for the next 2,000 years. The short-lived Qin Dynasty was the first to unite China as a country under an emperor instead of a ruling clan. A bureaucratic government was introduced, and was continued by the less extreme Han Dynasty.
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When the Han Dynasty fell into decline, it fractured into the Three Kingdoms Period (220–265). After the Three Kingdoms Period came the Jin Dynasty, which then conquered most of China (265–420). Its hold on power was tenuous, however, and China again fractured, this time into the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589). During this messy time, many religions emerged and Buddhism was popular among the barbarian kingdoms in North China.
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China's Middle Ages saw steady growth through a series of regime changes. China went from having four warring kingdoms to being the most culturally sophisticated and technologically developed nation. Finally, it was consumed by the rise and fall of the phenomenal Mongol Empire, which stretched to Europe.
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In 581, Yang Jian usurped the throne in the north and, as Emperor Wen, united the rest of China under the Sui Dynasty. It was a short, intense dynasty, with great conquests and achievements, such as the Grand Canal and the rebuilding of the Great Wall. One of Emperor Wen’s most prominent achievements was to create the imperial examination system to select talented individuals for bureaucratic positions.
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After the short-lived Sui Dynasty, the powerful and prosperous Tang Dynasty unified China once again. The Tang Dynasty continued with the Sui’s imperial examination system and optimized it. It ruled for three centuries, and it was also the golden age for poetry, painting, tricolored glazed pottery, and woodblock printing.
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The "four great inventions" of the Chinese people in ancient times (paper, printing, the compass, and gunpowder) were further developed in the Song Dynasty.
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In 1206, Genghis Khan unified all the tribes in Mongolia, founded the Mongol khanate, and conquered an unprecedented swathe of Asia. At the end of the 12th century, Mongolian rule grew steadily. With Genghis Khan and his descendants expanding their territory, the Mongol Empire extended all the way to Eastern Europe. The part of the Mongolian khanate that ruled China was known as the Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368).
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In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the imperial social structure (the royal/rich class, the scholarly class, the working class, and the slaves) and imperial examinations continued. However, they became increasingly inadequate in the ages of exploration, colonization, and industrialization.
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Beijing, earlier known as Peking and Peiping, was founded by Zhou around 700 B.C. Kublai Khan made it the capital of his Khanbalik Empire, from 1264 to 1267. The Ming emperors made it their capital in 1421 and it remained China's capital till 1912 when the Manchu Empire fell and SunYat Sen turned China into a republic.
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Mao Tse-tung was the principal Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier and statesman who led his nation's Cultural Revolution.
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The Republican Revolution of 1911, led by Sun Yat-sen, ended the rule of the Qing Dynasty. However, the Republic of China could not be firmly established across China, with civil war ensuing for decades.
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Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, China has entered a Communist era of stability, with the Reform and Opening Up policy of 1978 bringing in China's phenomenal economic growth.
