Rugged Tours Blog

China, as one of the oldest civilisations, has over 5,000 years of history. It has been through many different stages in history as independent kingdoms as well as one big kingdom. It is hard to explain or talk about certain places in China without some basic knowledge of its vast history, so I decided to put some basic information here in this blog as a reference for other posts in the future. I will do this over a period of time and will add more information gradually. Any future suggestions are more than welcome.

China (中国) literally means the middle kingdom in Chinese. Also throughout different ruling periods in history, the map of China changes, therefore, I will use “China” as a general term for a geographic area during certain periods rather than the currently known country.

Let’s start with the very first.

Qin dynasty (秦朝) (BC221-BC207):(map)

The very first dynasty with a feudal society in China. Its first emperor was called Qin, a.k.a Qin Shi Huang. He conquered the rest of the 6 kingdoms of China and standardised the currency, language, weight and measure systems. He also ordered his people to build a magnificent tomb for himself before his death, which is the world famous Terracotta Warriors site.

Han dynasty (汉朝)(BC202-AD9, AD25-220):(map)

The Han dynasty is another dynasty right after the Qin dynasty. It is separated into Xi Han(West Han, BC202-AD9) and Dong Han (East Han, AD25-220). The Han dynasty is an important historical period for Chinese culture and traditions forming and developing. It was during the Han dynasty, Chinese started to travel to the west and formed an important eastern trading centre as part of the famous Silk Road.

Jin dynasty (晋朝) (265-420): (map)

Jin dynasty is also divided into West Jin (265-316) and East Jin (317-420). Jin dynasty ruled the country by giving official positions to relatives and family members, which caused serious political corruption and wasteful extravaganza life style in the royal family. Without a centralised military power , there were lots of fight within the royal family, which weakens the country in general and at the end of the West Jin dynasty, there were lots of invasions from nearby Mongolian, Turkish people. And these invasion also caused the end of the domination position of  Confucius and brough a multi culture era to China.

And there were 19 emperors in the period of Jin dynasty.

Tang dynasty (唐朝) (618-907): (map)

The Tang dynasty is believed to be the most prosperous period of Chinese history and, its culture traditions,  heavily influenced nearby countries such as Japan and Korean. Chinese people are still sometimes referred to as “Tang ren”,  and China towns around the world are called  “Tang ren jie 唐人街”, which means “street of Tang people”.

There were 22 emperors that ruled the kingdom in the Tang dynasty, including the only female emperor Wu Zetian (武则天).

Wu Dai Shi Guo a.k.a. Five Dynasties & Ten Kingdoms (五代十国)(907-960):(map)

After the collapsing of the Tang dynasty, China split into several parts and there were 5 rather short dynasties ruled the central China area. During the same period of those 5 dynasties, there were 10 different small kingdoms existed in South, south-west and east parts of China.

Song dynasty (宋朝) (960—1279): (map)

The Song dynasty is another prosperous dynasty in China’s history. The Song dynasty is divided into North Song (960-1127) and South Song (1127-1279) due to a Mongolian invasion in 1127, the Song dynasty moved the royal family to the south of China. The Song dynasty placed an emphasis on ruling the country through education and cultural development rather than military reinforcement. The printing press, gunpowder and the compass were first developed and used during the Song dynasty.

There were 18 emperors that ruled the kingdom over a period of 320 years, which makes the Song dynasty one of the longest running dynasties in China.

Western Xia dynasty (西夏王朝) (1038-1227): (map)

The Western Xia dynasty, a.k.a. the Tangut Empire is a coexistent dynasty during the Song dynasty. This dynasty is formed and led by a group of nomads called Tangut or Dangxiang people in the west of China. Its ruling area includes most of north and north-west of China. During the earlier years of the dynasty, there were a lot of wars happening between Western Xia and Song dynasties.

Ming dynasty (明朝)(1368-1683): (map)

The Ming dynasty is last feudal society kingdom ruled by Han people. And its first founding emperor was believed to be from a very poor family or was even a beggar.

The Ming dynasty had 16 emperors over 276 years.

Qing dynasty (清朝) (1916-1911): (map)

The Qing dynasty is the last feudal society in China and also the second dynasty ruled by a minority, Man people, rather than Han people. The Qing dynasty had a similar geographical ruling area with the currently known China.

The Qing dynasty had 12 emperors over a period of 268 years.