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China

1600 BCE – 1912 CE

Three and a half millennia of Chinese history on one map — from the Shang oracle bones through the dynasties to the fall of the Qing.

1079 events · 2044 people · 16 eras

Key events

1. Battle of the Hydaspes325 BCE
   The Battle of the Hydaspes also known as Battle of Jhelum, or First Battle of Jhelum, was fought between the Macedonian Empire under Alexander the Great and the Pauravas under Porus in May of 326 BC. It took place on the banks of the Hydaspes River in what is now the Punjab province of Pakistan, as part of Alexander's Indian campaign. In what was possibly their most costly engagement, the Macedonian army secured a decisive victory over the Pauravas and captured Porus. Large areas of Punjab were subsequently absorbed into the Macedonian Empire; Alexander spared Porus and made him a satrap, effectively reinstating him as the region's ruler.
2. Battle of Talas751 CE
   The Battle of Talas was an armed confrontation between the Abbasid Caliphate along with the Tibetan Empire against the Tang dynasty and its allies in 751. In July of that year, the Tang and Abbasid armies clashed at the Talas River over control of the regions surrounding the Syr Darya. The Tang army under Gao Xianzhi was defeated by the Abbasid army under Ziyad ibn Salih and Karluk mercenaries. Sources differ on whether the Karluks defected to the Abbasids or if they were Abbasid allies from the start. The defeat marked the end of Tang influence in Transoxiana and halted Tang westward expansion.
3. 1556 Shaanxi earthquake1556 CE
   One of the deadliest earthquakes in history occurred in the early morning of 23 January, 1556 in Huaxian, Shaanxi, during the Ming dynasty.
4. Japanese invasions of Korea1592 CE
   The Imjin War was a series of two Japanese invasions of Korea: an initial invasion in 1592 also individually called the "Imjin War", a brief truce in 1596 between the conflicts, followed by a second invasion in 1597 called the Chŏngyu War. The conflict ended in 1598 with the withdrawal of Japanese forces from the Korean Peninsula after a military stalemate in Korea's southern provinces.
5. Battle of Plassey1757 CE
   The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company, under the leadership of Robert Clive, over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757. The victory was made possible by the betrayal of Mir Jafar, Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah's commander in chief, as well as much of the Bengal Subah's armies being earlier committed against an Afghan invasion led by Ahmad Shah Durrani against the Mughal Empire. The battle helped the British East India Company take complete control of Bengal in 1773. Over the next hundred years, they continued to expand their control over vast territories in the rest of the Indian subcontinent and Burma.
6. Second Opium War1856 CE
   The Second Opium War, also known as the Second Anglo-Chinese War or Arrow War, was fought between the United Kingdom and France against the Qing dynasty of China between 1856 and 1860. It was the second major conflict in the Opium Wars, which were fought over the right to import opium to China, and resulted in a second defeat for the Qing and the forced legalisation of the opium trade. It caused many Chinese officials to believe that conflicts with the Western powers were no longer traditional wars, but part of a looming national crisis.
7. Sino-French War1884 CE
   The Sino-French or Franco-Chinese War, also known as the Tonkin War, was a limited conflict fought from August 1884 to April 1885 between the French Third Republic and the Qing dynasty for influence in Vietnam. There was no declaration of war.
8. First Sino-Japanese War1894 CE
   The First Sino-Japanese War, or the First China–Japan War, was a conflict between the Qing dynasty of China and the Empire of Japan primarily for influence over Korea. In China it is commonly known as the Jiawu War. After 6 to 7 months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the ports of Lüshunkou and Weihaiwei, the Qing government sued for peace in February 1895 and signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki two months later, ending the war.
9. Treaty of Shimonoseki1895 CE
   The Treaty of Shimonoseki , also known as the Treaty of Maguan in China or the Treaty of Bakan in Japan, was signed in Shimonoseki, Japan, on April 17, 1895, between the Empire of Japan and the Qing dynasty. The treaty ended the First Sino-Japanese War, in which the Japanese decisively defeated the Chinese land and naval forces. The treaty was signed at the Shunpanrō hotel by Count Itō Hirobumi and Viscount Mutsu Munemitsu for Japan and Li Hongzhang and his son Li Jingfang on behalf of China.
10. Boxer Rebellion1899 CE
    The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, Boxer Movement, Yihetuan Movement, or Boxer War, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. Its members were known as the "Boxers" in English, owing to many of them practicing Chinese martial arts, which at the time were referred to as "Chinese boxing". It was defeated by the Eight-Nation Alliance of foreign powers.
11. Russo-Japanese War1904 CE
    The Russo-Japanese War was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the Liaodong Peninsula and near Mukden in Southern Manchuria, with naval battles taking place in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan.
12. Battle of Mukden1905 CE
    The Battle of Mukden , one of the largest land battles to be fought before World War I and the last and the most decisive major land battle of the Russo-Japanese War, was fought from 20 February to 10 March 1905 between Japan and Russia near Mukden in Manchuria. The city is now called Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province in China.

Notable people

• Alexander the Great356 BCE – 323 BCE
• Winston Churchill1874 CE – 1965 CE
• Genghis Khan1162 CE – 1227 CE
• Qin Shi Huang259 BCE – 210 BCE
• Ashoka304 BCE – 232 BCE
• Victoria1819 CE – 1901 CE
• Akbar1542 CE – 1605 CE
• Plutarch40 CE – 120 CE
• Timur1336 CE – 1405 CE
• Sun Yat-sen1866 CE – 1925 CE
• Cyrus the Great600 BCE – 530 BCE
• Sima Qian145 BCE – 86 BCE

Cultural works

Eras spanning this view

Related atlas views

• Tang Dynasty China
• Japan
• East Asia

Explore more of the atlas

• Three Kingdoms
• Heian Japan
• India
• Abbasid Baghdad
• Western Europe
• Britain & Ireland

Want the background? Read the guides on what was happening at the same moment in history.

Events from Wikipedia/Wikidata (CC-BY-SA); base map © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); era boundaries are a hand-curated set in v1. Spotted a mistake? Email [email protected].