What is about Chinese history?

GENERAL CHINESE
HISTORY

The history of China is in the main the

history of a single people, using a single
language and a system of writing that has not
changed in principle from its beginning over
three thousand years ago.

PRE-MODERN

China Present

Beijing (Peking)
Nanjing
Tianjin

Guangzhou
Lanzhou
Shanghai
Mt. Everest Wuhan
Chengdu
Chongqing

1500 BC -100 BC

Haerbin
Shenyang
Xian
Lhasa
Urumqi

Lanzhou
Zhengzhou
Hainan Dao
Hainan Island

Taipei

size of boundary keeps on increasing

Ming Dynasty,

600-1911

before 1600

What we mean by the term China?

What we mean by China?

PRC
Republic
of China
place/ Peoples
geographical
location
Mainland China
- PRC - People's Republic of China
China-proper
- Mainland China
Those who believe Chinese civilization
- China-proper()
Those who believe Chinese civilization
A

What we mean by Chinese?

With living
passport
of PRC
within
the boundary(i.e. China)
Han Chinese
With passport of PRC
Han Chinese
People

China < [Wade-Giles] Chin ~ [Pinyin] Qin

Diversity of China

Northerners

Northerners : long face, high bridge of nose, flat face, smaller mouth
Southerners : round face, wide nose, prominent cheekbone, large mouth

Southerners

Chn Xixi
Skull, Neolithic Period,
from Fuzhou, Fujian province

CHAN Sit-haa

Women's Weightlifting of
2008 Olympic Games

Northerners

Southerners

Southerners

Mongolian
Uighur

Chang Hui-mei (), real name Kulilay Amit (),

from the Taiwanese aborigines () whose languages are
genetically closed to the Philippines and Malaysia.

Tibetan
Zhuang

Ethnic minority

Evenki

Mongolian
Dumdadu

Middle

Ulus-un

Countrys

arad-un

peoples

Mongolian

Bangki

bank

Hui-Muslim

Uighur Turkic language in Arabic script

Dai , Zhuangin GuangXi

Miao

Tajik

Uighur
Tibetan

Even the same ethnic group,

same writing script,
They could be in different speaking language

Branches of HanChinese language

Mandarin

Xiang , Gan
Wu

Fuzhou

Southern Min

Suzhou, Shanghai

Northern Min

Included Jin

Hokkien Amoy, Taiwan

Hakka
Cantonese

Natural environment and the

difficulty of China
Europe: 10 millions km
740 millions people

China: 9 millions km
1360 millions people

France

Geography

640,000 km ;
65millions people

Guangdong
province
180,000km ;
100millions people

Although the Southern China is warm and full of rainfall,

it is also a lot of hills and mountains which could not get good harvast.

Six sevenths (6/7) of the population have to live on the

one third (1/3) of the land that is cultivable.
China today must feed about 23 percent of the world's
population from about 7 percent of the world's
cultivable land.
Of the land that can be used at all, nine tenths is
cultivated for crops, and only about 2 percent is pasture
for animals.
Social implications of the natural conditions.
Life on the great river floodplains has always been a
hard life.
Collective life.

The Village: Family and Lineage

Inner Asia and China

Lineage

Inner Asia: from Manchuria through Mongolia and

Turkestan to Tibet

The contrast between Inner Asia and China proper

With same surname, and common ancestor

Family system
Basic Social institutions
While the family headship passes intact from father
to eldest son, the family property does not.

Family property would be shared with all sons.

This practice was rather different with Europe or Japan.

Especially before the industrialization