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Period: 2070 BCE to 1600 BCE
Xia Dynasty
Early Chinese dynasty mentioned in legends. According to legend, the founder was Yu, who was credited with having engineered the draining of the waters of a great flood and who was later identified as a deified lord of the harvest. Yu allegedly made the rulership hereditary in his family, thereby founding the first imperial dynasty in China. -
Period: 1766 BCE to 1046 BCE
Shang Dynasty.
The Shang dynasty is the oldest Chinese dynasty whose existence is supported by archaeological finds, but more evidence for the existence of the Xia dynasty may yet emerge. It's estimated that the Shang ruled the Yellow River Valley of China for most of the second millennium BCE. -
Period: 1279 BCE to 1368 BCE
Yuan Dynasty.
The Yuan dynasty was the first foreign-ruled dynasty in Chinese history to commandeer all of China. With no experience in the running of such a large and complex empire, the Mongols gradually adopted many Chinese cultural and bureaucratic models. -
Period: 1050 BCE to 221 BCE
zhou Dynasty.
The Zhou people had their origins in the far western reaches of the Yellow River in present day Shaanxi province. They conquered the Shang around 1050 BCE and established their own dynasty series of rulers from a single family.. The Zhou shared many cultural similarities with the Shang. -
Period: 618 BCE to 907 BCE
Tang Dynasty.
The Tang dynasty, or the Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. -
581 BCE
Sui Dynasty.
The Sui dynasty was a short-lived Chinese imperial dynasty that ruled from 581 to 618. The re-unification of China proper under the Sui brought the Northern and Southern dynasties era to a close, ending a prolonged period of political division since the War of the Eight Princes.