History

Qin & Han: Founding the Empire

The Qin dynasty (221 – 206 BCE) was short but transformative. Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇) — "First Emperor of Qin" — unified the warring Chinese states into a single empire and locked in many of the institutions it would keep for two millennia.

Character	Pinyin	Dynasty
	Qín	221 – 206 BCE
	Hàn	206 BCE – 220 CE

Qin's lasting reforms

One script. Different regions used variant character forms; Qin imposed a single one — the ancestor of modern Chinese characters.
Standardized weights, measures, currency, even axle widths so carts fit the same ruts everywhere.
Began the Great Wall (长城, chángchéng) by linking earlier border walls.
Terracotta Army — thousands of life-sized clay soldiers built as the emperor's afterlife guard, discovered near Xi'an in 1974.

The Han (汉) dynasty

The 汉 dynasty was so culturally formative that the Chinese ethnic majority is still called the 汉 people, the language 汉语 (Hànyǔ), and the characters 汉字 (Hànzì).

Confucianism became the official state ideology — civil servants were chosen by exam on Confucian classics, a system that lasted until 1905.
The Silk Road opened, linking China with central Asia and eventually Rome.
Paper was invented around 105 CE.

Quiz

Pick the best answer for each question. You get feedback right away.

Who unified China into its first empire?
The 长城 (Great Wall) was first linked together under which dynasty?
Why is the ethnic majority called 汉 today?