Republic, then People's Republic
1,912 CE – 1,949 CE
The last emperor abdicates; decades of war and revolution follow.
Read more — History of the Republic of ChinaArchive › China
From Longshan pottery to the People's Republic.
Open China in the interactive timeline →1,912 CE – 1,949 CE
The last emperor abdicates; decades of war and revolution follow.
Read more — History of the Republic of China1,644 CE – 1,912 CE
Manchu rulers expand China to its largest extent, then lose ground to European powers and internal revolt.
Read more — Qing dynastyImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,368 CE – 1,644 CE
The Forbidden City is built and Zheng He's fleets sail as far as Africa — then the voyages stop.
Read more — Ming dynastyImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,271 CE – 1,368 CE
Kublai Khan rules China as part of the Mongol world. Marco Polo claims to have visited.
Read more — YuanImage source (unverified) auto-matched960 CE – 1,279 CE
Paper money, gunpowder weapons, porcelain and movable type — arguably the most inventive state in the world at the time.
Read more — SongImage source (unverified) auto-matched700 CE
Woodblock printing appears in China roughly seven centuries before Gutenberg.
Read more — Woodblock618 CE – 907 CE
Cosmopolitan, confident and outward-facing. Chang'an is the largest city on Earth.
Read more — TangImage source (unverified) auto-matched220 CE – 280 CE
The Han collapses into three rival states — a period that becomes China's greatest source of legend.
Read more — Three KingdomsImage source (unverified) auto-matched130 BCE
Han envoys open sustained overland trade west, linking China to Persia, India and eventually Rome.
Read more — Silk RoadImage source (unverified) auto-matched206 BCE – 220 CE
Four centuries so formative that most Chinese still call themselves Han. Paper, the compass and the Silk Road all belong to it.
Read more — Han dynasty221 BCE – 206 BCE
The first emperor standardises script, weights and axle widths, and is buried with a terracotta army.
Read more — Qin Shi HuangImage source (unverified) auto-matched475 BCE – 221 BCE
Seven states fight for supremacy. Sun Tzu's Art of War comes out of this.
Read more — Warring States periodImage source (unverified) auto-matched551 BCE – 479 BCE
Two teachers whose ideas about order, duty and the natural way shape East Asia for millennia.
Read more — ConfuciusImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,046 BCE – 256 BCE
The longest dynasty in Chinese history, and the source of the Mandate of Heaven.
Read more — ZhouImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,200 BCE
Questions to the ancestors scratched onto ox bones and turtle shells — the direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters.
Read more — Written ChineseImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,600 BCE – 1,046 BCE
The first Chinese dynasty confirmed by archaeology, with a king, an army, and oracle bones.
Read more — Shang dynastyImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,900 BCE
Casting techniques develop independently, producing ritual vessels of extraordinary complexity.
Read more — Chinese ritual bronzesImage source (unverified) auto-matched3,000 BCE – 1,900 BCE
Villages along the Yellow River known for black pottery so thin it is called eggshell ware.
Read more — LongshanImage source (unverified) auto-matched