China

Four thousand years of civilization, from oracle-bone kings to the world's second-largest economy.

China is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, with a written record reaching back to the Bronze Age Shang dynasty around 1600 BCE. From the philosophical ferment of the Zhou and the imperial unification under the First Emperor of Qin in 221 BCE, China developed an enduring tradition of centralized bureaucratic government that outlasted dozens of dynasties. Golden ages under the Tang and Song produced printing, gunpowder, paper money, and a flourishing of art and poetry, while later the Mongol Yuan, Han-Chinese Ming, and Manchu Qing dynasties governed a vast multiethnic empire. The collapse of the empire in 1911-12 gave way to a republic, warlordism, devastating war with Japan, and civil war, ending with the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. After the upheavals of the Mao era, market reforms launched in 1978 transformed China into a global economic power.