Prehistory , Beijing.
Archaeological evidence suggests that early
hominids inhabited China 2.25 million years ago. The hominid fossils of
Peking Man, a
Homo erectus who
used fire, have been dated to between 680,000 and 780,000
years ago. The fossilized teeth of
Homo sapiens (dated to 125,000–80,000 years ago) have been discovered in
Fuyan Cave. Chinese
proto-writing existed in
Jiahu around 6600 BCE, at
Damaidi around 6000 BCE,
Dadiwan from 5800 to 5400 BCE, and
Banpo dating from the 5th millennium BCE. Some scholars have suggested that the
Jiahu symbols (7th millennium BCE) constituted the earliest Chinese writing system. The
Shang dynasty that traditionally succeeded the Xia is the earliest for which there are both contemporary written records and undisputed archaeological evidence. The Shang ruled much of the
Yellow River valley until the 11th century BCE, with the earliest hard evidence dated . The
oracle bone script, attested from but generally assumed to be considerably older, represents the oldest known form of
written Chinese, and is the direct ancestor of modern
Chinese characters. The Shang were overthrown by the
Zhou, who ruled between the 11th and 5th centuries BCE, though the centralized authority of
Son of Heaven was slowly eroded by
fengjian lords. Some principalities eventually emerged from the weakened Zhou and continually waged war with each other during the 300-year
Spring and Autumn period. By the time of the
Warring States period of the 5th–3rd centuries BCE, there were seven major powerful states left.
Imperial China Qin and Han during the 2nd century BCE|thumb|upright=1.1|left The
Warring States period ended in 221 BCE after the
state of Qin conquered the other six states, reunited China and established the dominant order of
autocracy.
Qin Shi Huang proclaimed himself the Emperor of the
Qin dynasty, becoming the first emperor of a unified China. He enacted
legalist reforms, notably the standardization of Chinese characters,
measurements, road widths, and
currency. His dynasty also
conquered the Yue tribes in
Guangxi,
Guangdong, and
Northern Vietnam. The Qin dynasty lasted only fifteen years, falling soon after the Qin Shi Huang's death. Following
widespread revolts during which the imperial library
was burned, the
Han dynasty emerged to rule China between 206 BCE and 220 CE, creating a cultural identity among its populace still remembered in the ethnonym of the modern
Han Chinese. Despite the Han's initial decentralization and the official abandonment of the Qin philosophy of Legalism in favor of
Confucianism, Qin's legalist institutions and policies continued to be employed by the Han government and its successors.
Three Kingdoms, Jin, Northern and Southern dynasties , Datong,
Shanxi. Northern Wei dynasty, c. 460–465 CE. After the
end of the Han dynasty, a period of strife known as
Three Kingdoms followed, at the end of which
Wei was swiftly overthrown by the
Jin dynasty. The Jin fell to
civil war upon the ascension of the developmentally disabled
Emperor Hui; the
Five Barbarians then
rebelled and ruled northern China as the
Sixteen States. The
Xianbei unified them as the
Northern Wei, whose
Emperor Xiaowen reversed his predecessors' apartheid policies and
enforced a drastic sinification on his subjects. In the south, the general
Liu Yu secured the abdication of the Jin in favor of the
Liu Song. The various successors of these states became known as the
Northern and Southern dynasties, with the two areas finally reunited by the
Sui in 589.
Sui, Tang and Song The Sui restored the Han to power through China, reformed its agriculture, economy and
imperial examination system, constructed the
Grand Canal, and patronized
Buddhism. However, they fell quickly when their conscription for public works and a
failed war in
northern Korea provoked widespread unrest. Under the succeeding
Tang and
Song dynasties, Chinese economy, technology, and culture entered a golden age. The Tang dynasty retained control of the
Western Regions and the Silk Road, which brought traders to as far as
Mesopotamia and the
Horn of Africa, and made the capital
Chang'an a cosmopolitan urban center. However, it was devastated and weakened by the
An Lushan rebellion in the 8th century. , originally painted by
Zhang Xuan (713–755) during the Tang dynasty; this 12th-century Song dynasty copy is the earliest surviving version. Silk painting. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. , A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains (千里江山圖), detail. Northern Song dynasty, c. 1113. Handscroll, ink and mineral pigments on silk.
Palace Museum, Beijing. The Tang and Song dynasties represented a period of transformation across multiple domains of civilization. In technology, the Song dynasty witnessed the first systematic military application of gunpowder, including fire arrows and proto-firearms such as the fire lance, as well as the adoption of the magnetic compass for maritime navigation. Movable type printing, invented by Bi Sheng around 1040, preceded Gutenberg's press by over four centuries and dramatically accelerated the diffusion of knowledge across East Asia. Economically, the Song period has been characterized by some historians as a proto-industrial revolution: iron production reached levels comparable to early eighteenth-century England, the rigid Tang-era ward system (
fang) gave way to open commercial streets and night markets, and cities such as Bianjing (
Kaifeng) and Lin'an (
Hangzhou) each surpassed one million inhabitants. The maritime Silk Road expanded significantly, with the ports of Quanzhou and Guangzhou becoming among the busiest in the contemporary world, connecting China to Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. In intellectual life, the Neo-Confucian synthesis associated with the
Cheng brothers and
Zhu Xi reinterpreted classical thought in response to Buddhist metaphysics, producing a philosophical framework that became the dominant state ideology across East Asia, including Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, for several centuries. The Tang dynasty, meanwhile, produced what many scholars regard as the apogee of classical Chinese poetry, with works that remained canonical across the
Sinosphere, while the cosmopolitan character of Chang'an, home to Sogdian merchants, Zoroastrian temples, Nestorian Christian communities, and Japanese diplomatic missions, reflected the Tang empire's integration into a broader Eurasian world.
of Song,
Auspicious Cranes (瑞鶴圖), detail, 1112. Handscroll, ink and color on silk.
Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang.In 907, the Tang disintegrated when the local military governors became ungovernable. The Song dynasty ended the
separatist situation in 960, leading to a balance of power between the Song and the
Liao dynasty. The Song was the first government in world history to issue paper money and the first Chinese polity to establish a permanent navy which was supported by the developed shipbuilding industry along with the sea trade. Between the 10th and 11th century CE, the population of China doubled to around 100 million people, mostly because of the expansion of rice cultivation in central and southern China, and the production of abundant food surpluses. The Song dynasty also saw a
revival of Confucianism, in response to the growth of Buddhism during the Tang, and a flourishing of philosophy and the arts, as
landscape art and
porcelain were brought to new levels of complexity. However, the military weakness of the Song army was observed by the
Jin dynasty. In 1127,
Emperor Emeritus Huizong,
Emperor Qinzong and the capital
Bianjing were captured during the
Jin–Song wars. The remnants of the Song retreated to
southern China and reestablished
the Song at
Jiankang.
Yuan, Ming and Qing , photographed by
Thomas Child in the 1870s. Most extant sections of the Wall date to the
Ming dynasty. The
Mongol conquest of China began in 1205 with the
campaigns against
Western Xia by
Genghis Khan, who also
invaded Jin territories. In 1271, the Mongol leader
Kublai Khan established the
Yuan dynasty, which
conquered the last remnant of the Song dynasty in 1279. Before the Mongol invasion, the population of Song China was 120 million citizens; this was reduced to 60 million by the time of the census in 1300. A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang
overthrew the Yuan in 1368 and founded the
Ming dynasty as the
Hongwu Emperor. Under the Ming dynasty, China enjoyed another golden age, developing one of the strongest navies in the world and a rich and prosperous economy amid a flourishing of art and culture. It was during this period that admiral
Zheng He led the
Ming treasure voyages throughout the Indian Ocean, reaching as far as East Africa. In the early Ming dynasty, China's capital was moved from
Nanjing to Beijing. With the budding of capitalism, philosophers such as
Wang Yangming critiqued and expanded Neo-Confucianism with concepts of
individualism and equality of
four occupations. The
scholar-official stratum became a supporting force of industry and commerce in the tax boycott movements, which, together with the famines and defense against
Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) and
Later Jin incursions led to an exhausted treasury. In 1644, Beijing was captured by a coalition of
peasant rebel forces led by
Li Zicheng. The
Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide when the city fell. The Manchu
Qing dynasty, then allied with Ming dynasty general
Wu Sangui, overthrew Li's short-lived
Shun dynasty and subsequently seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing dynasty. and expansion of the empire|thumb|upright=1.1|left The Qing dynasty, which lasted from 1644 until 1912, was the last imperial dynasty of China. The
transition from Ming to Qing (1618–1683) cost 25 million lives, but the Qing appeared to have restored China's imperial power and inaugurated another flowering of the arts. After the
Southern Ming ended, the further conquest of the
Dzungar Khanate added Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang to the empire. Meanwhile, China's population growth resumed and shortly began to accelerate. It is commonly agreed that pre-modern China's population experienced two growth spurts, one during the
Northern Song period (960–1127), and other during the Qing period (around 1700–1830). By the
High Qing era China was possibly the most commercialized country in the world, and imperial China experienced a second commercial revolution by the end of the 18th century. On the other hand, the centralized autocracy was strengthened in part to suppress
anti-Qing sentiment with the policy of valuing agriculture and restraining commerce, like the
Haijin during the early Qing period and ideological control as represented by the
literary inquisition, causing some social and technological stagnation. invaded China to defeat the anti-foreign
Boxers and their Qing backers. The image shows a celebration ceremony inside the Chinese imperial palace, the
Forbidden City after the signing of the
Boxer Protocol in 1901. In the mid-19th century, the
Opium Wars with Britain and
France forced China to pay compensation, open treaty ports, allow
extraterritoriality for foreign nationals, and cede
Hong Kong to the British under the 1842
Treaty of Nanking, the first of what have been termed the
unequal treaties. The
First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) resulted in Qing China's loss of influence in the
Korean Peninsula, as well as the
cession of Taiwan to
Japan. The Qing dynasty also began experiencing
internal unrest in which tens of millions of people died, especially in the
White Lotus Rebellion, the failed
Taiping Rebellion that ravaged southern China in the 1850s and 1860s and the
Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) in the northwest. The initial success of the
Self-Strengthening Movement of the 1860s was frustrated by a series of military defeats in the 1880s and 1890s. In the 19th century, the great
Chinese diaspora began. Losses due to emigration were added to by conflicts and catastrophes such as the
Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879, in which between 9 and 13 million people died. The
Guangxu Emperor drafted a
reform plan in 1898 to establish a modern
constitutional monarchy, but these plans were thwarted by the
Empress Dowager Cixi. The ill-fated anti-foreign
Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901 further weakened the dynasty. Although Cixi sponsored a program of reforms known as the
late Qing reforms, the
Xinhai Revolution of 1911 ended the Qing dynasty.
Puyi, the last Emperor,
abdicated in 1912.
Republic of China On 1 January 1912, the
Republic of China (ROC) was established, and
Sun Yat-sen of the
Kuomintang was proclaimed provisional president. In 1912, the presidency was given to
Yuan Shikai, a former Qing general who in 1915 proclaimed himself
Emperor of China. In the face of popular condemnation and opposition from his own
Beiyang Army, he was forced to re-establish the republic in 1916. After Yuan's death in 1916, China was politically fragmented. Its Beijing-based government was internationally recognized but virtually powerless; regional warlords controlled most of its territory. During this
period, China
participated in World War I and saw a far-reaching popular uprising called the
May Fourth Movement. In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang under
Chiang Kai-shek reunified most the country through the
Northern Expedition. The Kuomintang moved the nation's capital to
Nanjing and implemented "political tutelage", an intermediate stage of political development outlined in Sun Yat-sen's
Three Principles of the People program for transforming China into a modern democratic state. The Kuomintang
briefly allied with the CCP during the Northern Expedition, though the alliance broke down in 1927 after Chiang
violently suppressed the CCP and other leftists in Shanghai, marking the beginning of the
Chinese Civil War.
CCP forces in Jiangxi were defeated by the Nationalist government in 1934, leading the CCP to initiate the
Long March and relocate to
Yan'an in
Shaanxi. It would be the base of the communists before major combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949. and
Mao Zedong toasting together in 1945 following the
end of World War IIIn 1931, Japan
invaded and occupied Manchuria. Additionally, Japan invaded other parts of China in 1937, precipitating the
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), a
theater of
World War II. The war forced an
uneasy alliance between the Kuomintang and the CCP. Japanese forces committed numerous
war atrocities against the civilian population; as many as 20 million Chinese civilians died. An estimated 40,000 to over 300,000 Chinese were
massacred in Nanjing alone during the Japanese occupation. The Republic of China, along with the UK, the United States, and the
Soviet Union, were recognized as the Allied "
Big Four" in the
Declaration by United Nations. Along with the other three great powers, China was one of the four major
Allies of World War II, and was later considered one of the primary victors in the war. After the
surrender of Japan in 1945, China emerged victorious but war-ravaged and financially drained. Taiwan, along with the
Penghu, were
handed over to ROC control; however, the validity of this handover is controversial. In 1946, fighting between CCP and KMT forces broke out and the country resumed a state of civil war that lasted more than three years. Constitutional rule was established in 1947, but because of the ongoing war, many provisions of the
ROC constitution were never implemented in mainland China. In 1950, the PRC
captured Hainan from the ROC and
annexed Tibet. The CCP consolidated its popularity among the peasants through the
Land Reform Movement, which included the state-tolerated executions of between 1 and 2 million landlords by peasants and former tenants. Though the PRC initially allied closely with the
Soviet Union, the relations between the two
communist nations
gradually deteriorated, leading China to develop an independent industrial system and
its own nuclear weapons. The Chinese population increased from 550 million in 1950 to 900 million in 1974. However, the
Great Leap Forward, a massive
industrialization project, resulted in
an estimated 15 to 55 million deaths between 1959 and 1961, mostly from starvation. In 1964, China
detonated its first atomic bomb. In 1966, Mao and his allies launched the
Cultural Revolution, sparking a decade of political recrimination and social upheaval that lasted until Mao's
death in 1976. were ended by a military-led massacre. After Mao's death, the
Gang of Four were
arrested by
Hua Guofeng. The Cultural Revolution was rebuked, with millions rehabilitated.
Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978, and started the
reform and opening up, instituting large-scale
political and economic reforms to transition away from planned economy. China adopted its current
constitution on 4 December 1982. In 1989, there were protests such
those in Tiananmen Square, and then throughout the entire nation.
Jiang Zemin was elevated to become the CCP general secretary, becoming the paramount leader. China's economy grew sevenfold during Jiang's tenure.
British Hong Kong and
Portuguese Macau returned to China in
1997 and
1999, respectively, as
special administrative regions under the principle of
one country, two systems. In 2002,
Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang as the general secretary. However, the growth also severely impacted the country's resources and environment, and caused major social displacement.
Xi Jinping succeeded Hu as paramount leader in 2012. Shortly after his ascension to power, Xi launched
a vast anti-corruption crackdown, that prosecuted more than 2 million officials by 2022. During
his tenure, Xi has consolidated power unseen since the initiation of economic and political reforms. == Geography ==