Chinese Dynasties

21st century B.C. - 17th century B.C.: Xia Dynasty17th century B.C. - 1025 B.C.: Shang (Yin) Dynasty1025 B.C. - 722 B.C.: Eastern Zhou-Dynasty770 B.C. - 256...

Chinese Dynasties Articles

Zhou Dynasty

For students of Chinese philosophy, the Zhou dynasty is one of the most exciting, because during this dynasty lived the most famous Chinese philosophers—if m...

The Yuan-dynasty: Mongolian foreign rule

The emperors During the Song dynasty the Mongols of the north had already strengthened their power, and developed more and more into a serious threat for the...

Xin Dynasty

Wang Mang was a nephew of Emperor Yuan Di’s consort and from 1 C.E. was the underage Emperor’s regent. In 9 C.E. he took the imperial title himself and found...

Xia Dynasty

The Xia dynasty has never been definitively proven historically, although excavations have revealed signs of a ruling dynasty dating back to the 21st century...

Western Han Dynasty

Demise of the Qin dynasty and founding of the Han dynasty The first emperor of the Qin dynasty, Qin Shi Huang Di, died in 210 B.C.E. during an inspection tri...

Three Empires

The time of the Three Empires was immortalized in San Guo Yanyi, the famous novel The Three Empires, which treats the confusion following the demise of the l...

Tang Dynasty

The Tang dynasty was one of China’s cultural and political apexes. China expanded politically during this time all the way to Korea, Vietnam, and inner Asia....

Sui Dynasty

Founding of the Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty arose from the northern Zhou empire, one of the three smaller empires that stemmed from the Toba’s Wei dynasty, o...

Song-Dynasty

Founder of the Song-dynasty was General Zhao Kuangyin. He was proclaimed emperor by his troops in Kaifeng in 960. Kaifeng became capital of the Song-empire,...

Shang Dynasty

The origins of the Shang dynasty lie in the province Henan, on the Yellow River. This dynasty is also called the Yin dynasty. In contrast to the Xia dynasty,...