Ancient China timeline

Yangshao culture

before 3200 to 3000 BCE. more than 200 years. North China, East Asia.

Millet farmers of the middle Yellow River who lived in villages of round and square houses, such as Banpo, and made red pottery painted with fish and faces.

Liangzhu culture

before 3200 to 2300 BCE. more than 900 years. South China and Taiwan, East Asia.

Rice farmers of the Yangtze delta whose walled city near Hangzhou had palaces on a huge earthen platform and a system of dams to control floods. They carved jade cong tubes and bi discs, often incised with the taotie motif.

Longshan culture

c. 3000 to 1900 BCE. about 1,100 years. North China, East Asia.

The late Neolithic of the middle and lower Yellow River, known for polished, eggshell-thin black pottery and towns with rammed earth walls such as Taosi; the stone-walled city of Shimao dates from the end of the period.

Xia dynasty (traditional)

c. 2070 to 1600 BCE. about 470 years. North China, East Asia.

The first dynasty of traditional Chinese history, said to have been founded by Yu the Great. Its existence is unproven: most Chinese archaeologists identify it with the Erlitou culture, while many Western scholars doubt it. Dates follow a 1996 Chinese state project.

Erlitou culture

c. 1750 to 1500 BCE. about 250 years. North China, East Asia.

An early Bronze Age society in Henan, seen by most archaeologists as China's first state, with walled palaces and the first large-scale casting of bronze ritual vessels. Chinese archaeologists generally link it to the Xia; some Western scholars call this premature.

Sanxingdui culture

c. 1600 to 1150 BCE. about 450 years. South China and Taiwan, East Asia.

A Bronze Age culture of the Chengdu plain with a walled city founded around 1600 BCE, whose pits held bronze masks with protruding pupils, a life-size standing figure and a bronze tree. No writing survives, and its bronze style differed from the Shang.

Shang dynasty

c. 1600 to 1046 BCE. about 554 years. capital Zhengzhou, later Yin (Anyang). North China, East Asia.

The earliest traditional Chinese dynasty firmly supported by archaeology, whose oracle bones carry the earliest known Chinese writing. It cast bronze ritual items and made human sacrifices in state rituals until the Zhou overthrew it.

Western Zhou

1046 to 771 BCE. about 275 years. capital Fenghao (near Xi'an). North China, East Asia.

The Zhou overthrew the Shang at Muye and justified it with the Mandate of Heaven. They ruled through regional polities usually headed by royal relatives, until nomads and rebels sacked the capital in 771 BCE.

Chu

c. 1030 to 223 BCE. about 807 years. capital Danyang, then Ying, then Shouchun. South China and Taiwan, East Asia.

The great southern state of the Zhou world, centered in Hubei and Hunan, whose rulers called themselves kings from the 8th century BCE. Poems with shamanistic themes survive in the Chu Ci, traditionally attributed mainly to Qu Yuan. Qin conquered it in 223 BCE.

Qin (Zhou state)

c. 897 to 221 BCE. about 676 years. capital Qian, then Yueyang, then Xianyang (from 350 BCE). North China, East Asia.

A western frontier state that grew from a fief in the Qin valley. The Legalist reforms of Shang Yang from 356 BCE made it a militarily powerful, centralized kingdom, and King Zheng conquered the other six states between 230 and 221 BCE.

Eastern Zhou

770 to 256 BCE. about 514 years. capital Luoyi (Luoyang). North China, East Asia.

The Zhou kings at Luoyi (Luoyang), reduced to figureheads as rival states fought through the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the era of the Hundred Schools of Thought. Qin deposed the last king in 256 BCE.

Qin dynasty

221 to 206 BCE. about 15 years. capital Xianyang. North China, East Asia.

Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor, standardized script, coins, weights and axle widths, linked the northern walls and was buried with the Terracotta Army. Revolts broke out after his death and the dynasty fell within four years.

Western Han

202 BCE to 9 CE. about 210 years. capital Chang'an. North China, East Asia.

Founded by the commoner Liu Bang. Emperor Wu sponsored Confucianism at court, fought the Xiongnu and pushed into Central Asia, Korea and Vietnam; the regent Wang Mang usurped the throne in 9 CE.

Xin dynasty

9 to 23 CE. about 14 years. capital Chang'an. North China, East Asia.

Wang Mang's dynasty, which nationalized farmland and banned the sale of slaves. Yellow River floods, the Red Eyebrows and other rebels brought it down, and Wang Mang was killed in 23.

Eastern Han

25 to 220 CE. about 195 years. capital Luoyang. North China, East Asia.

Liu Xiu restored the Han with its capital at Luoyang. Cai Lun refined papermaking in 105 and Buddhism first entered China in this era; court eunuchs, the Yellow Turban revolt and warlords tore it apart.