History of China

China is the world's oldest continuous civilization, with written records dating back at least 3,500 years. Turtle shells with ancient Chinese writing reminiscent of those of the Shang dynasty have been found and dated to almost 9000 years old. This suggests that the origins of the Chinese civilization, starting first with city-states may be older than 10,000 years. Although 5,000 years being commonly used by Chinese as the age of their civilization when China became a large kingdom or Empire. Successive dynasties developed systems of bureaucratic control, which gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighboring nomadic and mountain-dwelling cultures. The forced imposition of a common system of writing by the Qin emperor (200 BC) and the development of a state ideology based on Confucianism (100 BC) strengthened the Chinese civilization. Politically, China alternated between periods of political union and disunion, and was occasionally conquered by external ethnicities, of which many were eventually assimilated into the Chinese identity. These cultural and political influences from many parts of Asia as well as successive waves of immigration and emigration merged to create the familiar image of Chinese culture and people today.

See also

• History of Taiwan
• History of Hong Kong
• History of Macau
• Timeline of Chinese history, for a chronological list of major events and figures.
• Dynasties in Chinese history, for dates and links to more information on their histories and emperors.
• Chinese sovereign, for titles and naming conventions of Chinese rulers.
• Table of Chinese monarchs, for a very long list of the rulers of China.
• Military history of China
• List of Chinese rebellions
• List of past Chinese ethnic groups, for information on non-Han Chinese peoples in Chinese history.
• Chinese historiography, for an article on scholarship influenced by post-modernism and periodization.
• List of China-related topics, for a collection of articles on China.
• History of traditional Chinese medicine