Chinese Empire

How Many Dynasties Did China Have?

The question “how many dynasties did China have” sounds simple, but the answer is anything but. Depending on how you count, China had anywhere from a dozen dynasties to more than a hundred. Traditional Chinese historiography names a sequence of about thirteen major dynasties running from the Xia to the Qing. If we add the minor dynasties — short-lived, regional, or usurper states — the count rises to thirty or forty. If we add the many kingdoms, fiefdoms, and tribal confederations that ruled parts of China at various times, the count rises to more than a hundred. The variation depends entirely on what we mean by “dynasty” and what we count as a Chinese state. This article is one of three focused pieces in imperial Chinese dynasties; the others are our survey of the longest Chinese dynasty and our piece on the Warring States period. The section home at Chinese dynasties provides the broader context.

The Standard List of Major Dynasties

The most common way to count Chinese dynasties is to follow the Twenty-Four Histories (二十四史), the canon of official Chinese dynastic histories. The standard list, in chronological order, includes the Xia (c. 2070–1600 BCE), Shang (c. 1600–1046 BCE), Zhou (c. 1046–256 BCE), Qin (221–206 BCE), Han (202 BCE – 220 CE), Three Kingdoms (220–280 CE), Jin (266–420 CE), Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589 CE), Sui (581–618 CE), Tang (618–907 CE), Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907–979 CE), Song (960–1279 CE), Yuan (1271–1368 CE), Ming (1368–1644 CE), and Qing (1644–1912 CE). This list, depending on how the periods of disunion are counted, gives somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five major dynasties. Most popular accounts collapse the disunions into single entries and list only the major unifying dynasties, producing the familiar “thirteen dynasties” of schoolbooks.

The Criterion of Dynasty

A dynasty (朝, cháo) is, in the Chinese tradition, a family of rulers who hold the Mandate of Heaven and rule as a single legitimate regime. The defining features are a hereditary ruling house, a claim to the Mandate of Heaven, effective control of at least the core Chinese lands, and recognition by Chinese historians as a legitimate dynasty memorialised in an official history. These criteria are not as clear-cut as they sound. The Xia is half-legendary; the Northern Wei (386–534 CE), a non-Han Xianbei dynasty, is treated as legitimate; many smaller kingdoms of the Sixteen Kingdoms are not. The Tang ruling family was of mixed Xianbei-Turkic origin; the Song ruling family had no Han Chinese ancestry to speak of; the Qing was Manchu. Yet all are accepted as Chinese dynasties, on the grounds that they ruled China, used Chinese institutions, and were accepted as Chinese. The section on Mongol and Manchu rule treats the Yuan and Qing in detail.

The Problem of Periods of Disunion

The biggest source of variation in counting dynasties is what to do with the periods of disunion, when no single dynasty ruled all of China and several regimes ruled different parts in parallel.

After the fall of the Han in 220 CE, China was divided into three successor states — Wei, Shu, and Wu — each claiming legitimacy. The Southern and Northern Dynasties period (420–589 CE) saw Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang, and Chen in the south and the Northern Wei, Eastern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Qi, and Northern Zhou in the north — at least nine dynasties. The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907–979 CE) saw the rapid succession of the Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou in the north and ten kingdoms in the south, fifteen dynasties in total. The obscure Sixteen Kingdoms period (304–439 CE) actually contains closer to twenty non-Han states. Each of these disunified periods, counted as multiple dynasties, adds significantly to the total.

The Non-Han States

Another complication is the non-Han states that ruled part of China in parallel with Han Chinese dynasties. The most important were the Liao (907–1125 CE), a Khitan state in the northeast; the Jin (1115–1234), a Jurchen state that conquered north China from the Song; the Yuan (1271–1368), the Mongol dynasty that unified all of China; and the Qing (1644–1912), the Manchu dynasty. Should the Liao and Jin be counted as Chinese dynasties? Modern Chinese historiography generally includes them, on the grounds that they ruled significant parts of the Chinese world and adopted Chinese institutions. Traditional Han-centred historiography sometimes excluded them. Most Western histories include them.

A Practical Count

If we include all the dynasties that controlled at least part of the Chinese cultural world and were recognised as legitimate by Chinese historians, the count comes to about seventy. If we add the smaller kingdoms and short-lived states, the count rises to more than a hundred. The most widely accepted compromise is the following: major dynasties (the “thirteen dynasties” of schoolbooks: Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Jin, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing, plus one or two more); disunified periods counted as multiple dynasties (Three Kingdoms 3, Southern and Northern Dynasties 9, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms 15, Sixteen Kingdoms about 20); non-Han parallel regimes (Liao, Jin, plus various smaller states); and minor or usurper dynasties (Xin, Han Zhao, Former Yan, Later Yan, Northern Yan, Former Qin, Later Qin, Western Qin, Cheng Han, Southern Liang, Northern Liang, Western Liang, and many more). Adding these up gives a count of between thirty and one hundred dynasties.

Famous Counts in Chinese Tradition

Various Chinese scholars have attempted to enumerate the dynasties. The most famous count is the thirteen dynasties of the Song historian Sima Guang, who compiled the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance in 1084. His list included Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei (Cao Wei), Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, Chen, Sui, Tang, the Five Dynasties, and Song — omitting the Xia and Shang as legendary and the non-Han dynasties. The seventeen dynasties of the Qing historian Zhang Tingyu included all the major dynasties and several of the non-Han ones. The twenty-four dynasties of the late Qing scholar Zhao Erxun, who compiled the Draft History of Qing in 1928, included all the major dynasties and all the recognised non-Han ones, and is the most comprehensive standard list.

Why the Count Matters

The question of how many dynasties China had is connected to two deeper questions in Chinese historiography. The first is the question of what counts as China. If we count the Liao and Jin as Chinese dynasties, we are saying that the people of northeast Asia who were incorporated into the Chinese world in the 10th–13th centuries are part of Chinese history. If we exclude them, we are saying that only the Han Chinese are properly Chinese. Modern Chinese historiography has moved toward including the non-Han dynasties, and the standard list of Chinese dynasties now routinely includes the Liao, Jin, Yuan, and Qing. The second is the question of continuity and discontinuity. The standard list of thirteen dynasties presents Chinese history as a sequence of legitimate ruling houses, each replacing the previous after a period of chaos. The narrative suggests that the Chinese state is continuous, but the ruling families are not — and the story of the dynasties is, in a sense, the story of how that continuity was maintained across more than thirty major changes of ruling family. The full survey of these dynasties is in our section overview of Chinese dynasties.