Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China and one of its greatest, so foundational to Chinese identity that the majority ethnic group of China still calls itself the 'Han people.' It was founded in 202 BCE by Liu Bang, a commoner who rose to become Emperor Gaozu after defeating his rivals in the civil wars that followed the collapse of the Qin.

The Han retained the centralised administrative structure created by the Qin but tempered its harsh Legalism, gradually adopting Confucianism as the guiding ideology of the state and establishing an examination-influenced bureaucracy of educated officials that would characterise Chinese government for two thousand years. The dynasty is conventionally divided into the Western Han, ruling from Chang'an, and, after a brief interruption by the usurper Wang Mang's Xin dynasty, the Eastern Han, ruling from Luoyang. Under its most powerful ruler, Emperor Wu (reigned 141–87 BCE), the empire expanded dramatically into Central Asia, the Korean peninsula, and northern Vietnam, and pushed back the nomadic Xiongnu confederation. Emperor Wu's envoys opened the Silk Road, establishing the great trade and cultural network linking China with Central Asia, India, and ultimately Rome. The Han era was a golden age of Chinese civilisation, marked by major advances including the invention of paper, improvements in ironworking, the seismograph, the development of historical writing by Sima Qian, and flourishing arts and scholarship. Over time the dynasty was weakened by court intrigues, the concentration of land in the hands of powerful families, peasant uprisings such as the Yellow Turban Rebellion, and the rise of regional warlords. Central authority collapsed in the late second century CE, and the dynasty formally ended in 220 CE, fragmenting into the Three Kingdoms.

Key figures