East Asia: every state, empire and people from 3200 BCE to today
The East Asia section of the timeline follows 163 states, empires, colonies and peoples from 3200 BCE to today, in 6 areas: Tibet and the west, South China and Taiwan, North China, Manchuria, Korea and Japan. Among the most significant are Shang dynasty, Tang dynasty, Ming dynasty, Qing dynasty, Western Han and Eastern Han.
Open East Asia on the interactive timeline
Tibet and the west
- Neolithic farmers of the Tibetan plateau
- Majiayao culture
- Qijia culture
- Qiang peoples
- Zhangzhung
- Tuyuhun
- Tibetan Empire
- Tibetan era of fragmentation
- Guiyi Circuit
- Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom
- Guge kingdom
- Western Xia
- Sakya rule in Tibet
- Phagmodrupa dynasty
- Tsangpa dynasty
- Khoshut Khanate
- Ganden Phodrang (Dalai Lama government)
- Tibet under the People's Republic
South China and Taiwan
- Formosan Austronesian peoples
- Qujialing and Shijiahe cultures
- Liangzhu culture
- Baodun culture
- Maqiao culture
- Sanxingdui culture
- Shu kingdom (Jinsha)
- Chu
- Baiyue peoples
- Wu
- Yue
- Dian kingdom
- Minyue
- Nanyue
- Shu Han
- Eastern Wu
- Eastern Jin
- Liu Song dynasty
- Southern Qi
- Liang dynasty
- Chen dynasty
- Nanzhao
- Wu (Ten Kingdoms)
- Wuyue
- Former Shu
- Min
- Southern Han
- Later Shu
- Dali Kingdom
- Southern Tang
- Southern Song
- Portuguese Macau
- Dutch Formosa
- Southern Ming
- Kingdom of Tungning
- British Hong Kong
- Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
- Japanese Taiwan
- Republic of China (mainland)
- Republic of China on Taiwan
North China
- Yangshao culture
- Dawenkou culture
- Longshan culture
- Xia dynasty (traditional)
- Erlitou culture
- Shang dynasty
- Western Zhou
- Qi
- Yan
- Lu
- Jin (Zhou state)
- Eastern Zhou
- Qin (Zhou state)
- Han (Zhou state)
- Zhao
- Wei
- Qin dynasty
- Western Han
- Xin dynasty
- Eastern Han
- Cao Wei
- Western Jin
- Han Zhao
- Later Zhao
- Former Qin
- Northern Wei
- Eastern Wei
- Western Wei
- Northern Qi
- Northern Zhou
- Sui dynasty
- Tang dynasty
- Wu Zhou
- Later Liang
- Later Tang
- Later Jin (Five Dynasties)
- Later Han (Five Dynasties)
- Later Zhou
- Northern Song
- Jin dynasty (Jurchen)
- Mongol Empire (north China)
- Yuan dynasty
- Ming dynasty
- Qing dynasty
- Beiyang government
- People's Republic of China
Manchuria
- Amur and Ussuri foragers
- Hongshan culture
- Xiaoheyan culture
- Lower Xiajiadian culture
- Sushen and Yilou
- Upper Xiajiadian culture
- Buyeo
- Former Yan
- Mohe
- Balhae
- Liao dynasty
- Jurchen tribes
- Eastern Xia
- Later Jin
- Manchuria under the Qing
- Han settlers of the Northeast
- Russian Kwantung and the Chinese Eastern Railway
- Kwantung Leased Territory
- Fengtian clique
- Manchukuo
Korea
- Jeulmun pottery period
- Mumun pottery period
- Gojoseon
- Lelang Commandery
- Samhan confederacies
- Silla
- Goguryeo
- Baekje
- Gaya confederacy
- Unified Silla
- Later Baekje and Taebong
- Goryeo
- Joseon
- Korean Empire
- Japanese Korea
- North Korea
- South Korea
Japan
- Jomon culture
- Yayoi period
- Epi-Jomon culture
- Yamatai
- Kofun period
- Asuka period
- Emishi
- Satsumon culture
- Nara period
- Heian period
- Kamakura shogunate
- Ainu
- Sanzan kingdoms of Okinawa
- Kenmu Restoration
- Muromachi shogunate
- Ryukyu Kingdom
- Sengoku period
- Azuchi-Momoyama period
- Edo period (Tokugawa shogunate)
- Empire of Japan
- Allied occupation of Japan
- Japan (postwar)
Key events
- Liangzhu builds flood dams. The Liangzhu people raise a system of earthen dams and levees north of their city, among the oldest large water control works in the world.
- Oracle bone writing at Anyang. Diviners of the Shang king Wu Ding carve questions to the ancestors on turtle shells and ox bones, the oldest surviving Chinese writing.
- Battle of Muye. King Wu of Zhou defeats the last Shang king, who kills himself, and the Zhou claim the Mandate of Heaven.
- Birth of Confucius. Kong Qiu is born in the state of Lu. His teachings on ritual, family duty and good government become the foundation of East Asian political thought.
- Qin unifies China. King Zheng of Qin conquers the last of the Warring States and takes the new title Huangdi, emperor.
- First Emperor buried with the Terracotta Army. Qin Shi Huang dies on tour and is buried near Xi'an, guarded by about 8,000 life-size clay soldiers rediscovered by farmers in 1974.
- Cai Lun presents paper. The court eunuch Cai Lun reports a method of making paper from bark, hemp and rags to the Han emperor, and paper spreads across Asia.
- Yellow Turban rebellion. A Daoist millenarian movement rises across north China. The warlords who suppress it end up dividing the Han empire among themselves.
- Buddhism reaches Korea. Former Qin sends a monk with Buddhist images and scriptures to Goguryeo. Baekje accepts Buddhism in 384 and Silla in 527.
- Grand Canal completed. The Sui finish a network of canals linking Hangzhou, the Yangtze, the Yellow River and the north, carrying southern grain to the capitals for over a thousand years.
- Taika reforms. After a palace coup against the Soga clan, the Japanese court begins land and tax reforms modeled on Tang China.
- Silla unifies Korea. With Tang help Silla destroys Goguryeo, then fights the Tang until 676 to take control of the peninsula south of the Taedong river.
- An Lushan rebellion. The frontier general An Lushan rebels and takes both Tang capitals. Eight years of war cost millions of lives and leave the dynasty dependent on regional governors.
- Diamond Sutra printed. A woodblock-printed copy of the Diamond Sutra, later found in the Dunhuang Library Cave, is the oldest dated printed book in the world.
- Gunpowder formula recorded. The Song military manual Wujing Zongyao gives the first written recipes for gunpowder, used in fire arrows and bombs.
- Battle of Dan-no-ura. The Minamoto destroy the Taira fleet in the Shimonoseki strait, and the child emperor Antoku drowns. Warrior rule in Japan begins.
- Kamikaze wreck the Mongol fleet. A typhoon destroys most of Kublai Khan's second invasion fleet off Kyushu, remembered in Japan as the divine wind.
- Zheng He's first voyage. The eunuch admiral sails with over 200 ships and nearly 28,000 men, the first of seven voyages that reached India, Arabia and East Africa.
- Hangul proclaimed. King Sejong publishes the Korean alphabet, designed so that ordinary people could learn to read and write their own language.
- Japanese invasion of Korea. Toyotomi Hideyoshi sends some 150,000 troops into Korea. Ming armies, Korean guerrillas and Admiral Yi Sun-sin's fleet force a withdrawal by 1598.
- Battle of Sekigahara. Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the western daimyo coalition and becomes master of Japan, taking the title of shogun in 1603.
- Fall of Beijing. Li Zicheng's rebels take Beijing and the last Ming emperor hangs himself. The general Wu Sangui lets the Manchus through the Great Wall and they seize the capital.
- First Opium War. After Lin Zexu destroys British opium at Canton, Britain goes to war and forces the Treaty of Nanjing, opening ports and taking Hong Kong.
- Perry's black ships. US Commodore Matthew Perry sails into Edo Bay and demands that Japan open its ports, which it does in 1854.
- Meiji Restoration. Samurai from Satsuma and Choshu overthrow the shogunate and restore power to the young emperor Meiji, launching a rapid modernization.
- Xinhai Revolution. An army mutiny at Wuchang spreads across the provinces, and the last Qing emperor Puyi abdicates in February 1912.
- War with Japan and the Nanjing massacre. Fighting at the Marco Polo Bridge becomes full-scale war. Japanese troops take Nanjing in December and kill tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of civilians and prisoners.
- Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. US atomic bombs destroy two Japanese cities in August, killing over 100,000 people, and Japan surrenders days later.
- People's Republic proclaimed. Mao Zedong declares the People's Republic from Tiananmen on 1 October, and the Nationalist government retreats to Taiwan.
- Korean War. North Korea invades the south. UN forces led by the United States and Chinese armies fight to a stalemate, and the 1953 armistice leaves Korea divided.
- Tibetan uprising. A revolt in Lhasa is crushed by the People's Liberation Army, and the 14th Dalai Lama escapes to India, where he sets up a government in exile.
- Reform and opening. Deng Xiaoping's leadership begins decollectivizing farms and opening China to foreign investment, starting four decades of rapid growth.
- Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami kill about 18,000 people in northeast Japan and cause meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.