The history of China has been the history of an unbroken chain of dynasties representing the reigns of imperial families, stretching from the third millennium BC right up until the demise of the imperial system with the establishment of the Chinese republic in 1912. What follows is a brief precis of those dynasties, and the period immediately before them.

Dynastic China was preceded by the Neolithic period, which began around 10,000 years ago. As long ago as the early fourth millennium BC, the Chinese written language was already developing in signs found on pottery shards excavated from the Banpo site in Shannxi. During this time, sophisticated pottery traditions were appearing all over China, along with early metallurgy.

The Western Han historian Sima Qian, whose work, the Historical Records (Shiji) set the pattern for all subsequent official Chinese histories, records the Xia dynasty as the first dynasty in China. Although no written records have been recovered from archaeological excavations of this period, the Xia is thought to be associated with the Erlitou site situated north-east of Luoyang in Henan province. Discovered in 1959, this 9 square kilometer site contains the foundations for vast palace complexes in its central portion (one building measuring over 10,000 square metres), as well as smaller dwellings, potteries, bronze workshops, and an area within which are numerous small tombs. Artifacts include cast bronze vessels, weapons, lacquer-ware, and objects in stone, ivory, bone, and pottery. Carbon 14 tests date the five strata at the site to between 1900 and 1400 BC, with the earlier four strata falling within the traditional dates of the Xia dynasty (2205-1766 BC). The grandiose scale of the foundations would indicate that Erlitou was the site of a dynastic capital.

The Shang dynasty (1766-1045 BC) state probably controlled parts of the country encompassing portions of Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, and Anhui, a kingdom much smaller than the geographical reach of present day China. Their capital moved from Erlitou south of the Yellow River to Erligang in the north, and finally, to the famous site in Anyang around 1300 BC. They have left us with exquisite artifacts in stone, jade, bronze, ivory, and ceramic, as well as oracle bones giving us a full list of the dynasty's rulers as well as a record of battles, hunting trips, harvests, births and deaths. However, highly developed bronzes have been found in a much larger area of China with styles indicating different tribal cultures. The most remarkable of these were discovered at the Sanxingdui site in Sichuan province, huge anthropomorphic bronzes in a style hitherto unknown, and probably belonging to the rival polity of Shu mentioned in oracle bones found at Anyang.

We also know of the Shang from their bronze inscriptions, and from the Shujing (Book of Documents), a Confucian text purporting to contain accounts dating from the beginning of the Western Zhou dynasty. In 1045 BC, Anyang fell to the Zhou, a tribe to the west of the Shang state. The Zhou version in the Shujing describes the final days of the Anyang regime as a decadent period overseen by a sadistic king.

The Zhou dynasty (1045-256 BC) officially lasted until 256 BC, but they had little effective power after the end of the Western Zhou period (1045-771 BC). During the latter part of this period, the feudal lords, allies and princes whom the Zhou had originally enfeoffed became progressively more independent while powerful states developed to the south. In 771 BC, the Zhou were driven by an alliance of western tribes from their original capital near Xian in the province of Shaanxi to their secondary capital of Chengzhou, in Henan province in the East, marking the beginning of the Eastern Zhou period (771-256 BC). This period is roughly equivalent to the Spring and Autumn (named after the annals) and Warring States periods, a time of increasing conflict between rival states who nominally recognised the Zhou ruler as their king. It was also a time of artistic brilliance, with regional courts competing to outdo each other in baroque luxury, and of philosophical flowering: the era of Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, and Zhuangzi, of Confucianists and Daoists and Legalists, all competing with their schools of thought, patronised by regional rulers wanting the secret of domination over their neighbors.

Throughout the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, the Qin state in the west, which had embraced Legalist philosophy (that man is inherently evil and needs be controlled by fear), had been slowly swallowing up its neighbors' territories. In 221 BC, Qin finally managed to unite the whole country and its ruler declared himself the First Emperor (Shihuangdi). Among other policies adopted to ensure the unity of his empire, he standardised weights and measures, and the width of axles of all vehicles so that they would run along the same ruts in his new network of highways; he imposed a single written language and a single coinage, but most infamously, he burnt all Confucian texts in a bid to silence the criticism of their scholars. The First Emperor is legendary for the construction of the Great Wall by joining the original defensive walls of the northern states into a structure stretching over 4,000 kilometres from Shanhaiguan on the east coast to Jiayuguan in Gansu in the far west. Peasant rebellions erupted as a result of the massive labor conscription necessary for his vast works projects, so that the regime fell only 14 years after its establishment. The instrument and beneficiary of this was a man named Liu Bang, a minor Qin official from a peasant family who established his capital at Changan (modern Xian) and declared himself Han Gaodi of the Han dynasty.

The Han dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) lasted for over four hundred years with only a short interlude of fourteen years when Wang Mang, the nephew of the empress Wang, wife of Han Yuandi, declared the Xin dynasty in 9 AD. Upon his death in 23 AD, a distant relative of the imperial family declared himself the emperor of the Eastern Han dynasty (so called because the capital moved east to Luoyang in 25 AD) after a 2 year civil war. The preceding period came to be known as the Western Han. The Han dynasty was a high point in art, literature, technology, and territorial expansion, with the establishment of the Silk Road to the west. Along with the Tang dynasty, these are the two periods with which the Chinese identify today, calling themselves Han people or Tang people. The Eastern Han dynasty suffered from the increasing power and independence of a regional land-owning aristocracy, as well as internecine struggles between eunuchs and consort families at court. These problems led ultimately to the fall of the dynasty, and a period of disunity in China lasting several centuries.

Following the demise of the Han, China split into three in the Three Kingdoms period (220-280 AD) before being reunited for a brief 51 years during the Western Jin dynasty (265-316 AD). The country then split into northern and southern portions as it was invaded from the north by five nomadic tribes. The north went through over one hundred years of conflict while various states rose and fell in the "Sixteen Kingdoms" period (304-439 AD) before finally uniting under the Xianbei tribe to form the Northern Wei dynasty (439-534 AD). This in turn split into the Eastern and Western Wei, which then became the Northern Qi and Northern Zhou. Meanwhile, the Jin court, fleeing from the nomadic incursion in 316 AD, put a surviving Jin prince on the throne in Jiankang (modern Nanjing) and established the Eastern Jin dynasty (317-420 AD) in the south. After 420 AD, the south went through four further short-lived dynasties arising from military coups as generals set themselves on the throne. This whole period, also known as the Northern and Southern dynasties, came to an end with the unification of the country by the Sui in 581 AD. However, despite the constant warfare, China saw a flowering of the arts, religion, and philosophy during this time much as it had during the Warring States period, when the country last endured a prolonged period of division. Buddhism became the predominant religion, and the south was developed through the migration of people and resources escaping from foreign domination in the north. This set the economic conditions for the glorious reign of the Tang dynasty.

The Sui dynasty (581-618 AD) lasted for 37 years, during which the emperors built 2000 km of canal systems of which the Grand Canal stretched from Hangzhou in the south through Luoyang on the Huai river, northwest to Beijing. Palaces were constructed on a massive scale. This overuse of resources was compounded by military adventures into Korea, leading to peasant rebellions which overthrew the dynasty.

A northern general took the throne under the name Gaozu to found the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD). The second glorious period of Chinese history, this was a cosmopolitan age, with the re-establishment of the Silk Road. Luxuries and fashions flowed in from the west, along with the sport of polo. Xian became the most populous city in the world, a haven of religious and ethnic tolerance. There was a flowering of the arts, of painting and poetry, sculpture and metalwork. Tea became the national drink, true porcelain was developed, and the first printed book appeared. This reached a zenith during the reign of the emperor Xuanzong (712-756 AD) but his neglect of government during the latter part of his reign led ultimately to the rebellion of An Lu Shan, a general of Turkish and Sogdian parentage and a court favorite. In 755, An turned his armies towards the capital and declared himself emperor of the Greater Yan dynasty. It took 11 years to quell this rebellion, by which time the country was devastated. The dynasty never recovered.

After the fall of the Tang in 907 AD, there followed 50 years of strife during the Five Dynasties period before unity was reestablished under the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD). This was an extraordinary period of Chinese history, ruled by an extraordinary family who closely matched the Confucian ideal. A time of military weakness (half the country was lost to nomadic tribes as the dynasty retreated south in 1127 AD to form the "Southern Song", the preceding period being known as the Northern Song), this was an era of intense economic development and technological advance. Painting and porcelain attained heights which were never again equaled.

The Mongol whirlwind descended on China in the latter half of the thirteenth century to cause widespread devastation and the establishment of the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368 AD).

Another peasant uprising put an end to the Mongol occupation and Zhu Yuanzhang, youngest child of an itinerant labourer, declared himself emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 AD). The first half of the dynasty saw increased trade and prosperity, with fleets of huge ocean-going ships travelling all the way to East Africa under the eunuch admiral Zheng He. However, during the latter part of the dynasty, China turned inward and the system become increasingly reactionary. At the end of the dynasty, profligacy at court, poor governance, eunuch intrigues, and attacks by the Mongols, the Japanese, and the Manchus finally led to the fall of the Ming.

The Manchus were allowed through the Great Wall by the Chinese general Wu Sangui who had charge of the easternmost pass. Wu had thought to use the Manchus to rid the capital of rebels, but the Manchus came and stayed, establishing the Qing dynasty (1644-1911 AD). Although a foreign dynasty, the reigns of three emperors during the 18th century, those of Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong, are often regarded as outstanding, and China expanded to her greatest territorial extent during the latter's reign. Unfortunately, the Ching proved unable to adapt to technological developments in the West and the changing geopolitical realities. With increasing foreign encroachment upon her sovereignty and territorial integrity during the 19th century, the dynasty finally collapsed in 1911 with the abdication of the last emperor Puyi, spelling an end to four thousand years of the imperial system.