Sun Yat Sen overthrew the emperor in which country establishing a republic after 2000 years of imperial rule?
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Sun Yat-sen (; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)   was a Chinese revolutionary, first president and founding father of the Republic of China, and medical practitioner. As the foremost pioneer of the Republic of China, Sun is referred to as the "Father of the Nation" in the Republic of China (ROC), and  the "forerunner of democratic revolution" in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Sun played an instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty during the years leading up to the Double Ten Revolution. He was appointed to serve as Provisional President of the Republic of China when it was founded in 1912. He later co-founded the Kuomintang (KMT), serving as its first leader.  Sun was a uniting figure in post-Imperial China, and he remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered amongst the people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Although Sun is considered to be one of the greatest leaders of modern China, his political life was one of constant struggle and frequent exile. After the success of the revolution, he quickly resigned, due to Beiyang Clique pressure, from his post as President of the newly founded Republic of China, and led successive revolutionary governments as a challenge to the warlords who controlled much of the nation. Sun did not live to see his party consolidate its power over the country during the Northern Expedition. His party, which formed a fragile alliance with the Communists, split into two factions after his death.

Sun's chief legacy resides in his developing of the political philosophy known as the Three Principles of the People: nationalism (non-ethnic, independence from imperialist domination), democracy, and the people's livelihood (free trade and Georgist tax reform ).  

Names

Sun was born as Sun Wen (Cantonese: Syūn Màhn; ), and his genealogical name was Sun Deming (Syūn Dāk-mìhng; ).   As a child, his "milk name" was Dixiang (Dai-jeuhng; ). Sun's courtesy name was Zaizhi (Jai-jī; ), and his baptized name was Rixin (Yaht-sān; ).   While at school in Hong Kong he got the name Yat-sen ().   Sūn Zhōngshān (), the most popular of his Chinese names, came from the "Nakayama" () of Nakayama Shō (), the Japanese name given to him by Tōten Miyazaki.

Early years

Birthplace and early life

Sun Yat-sen was born on 12 November 1866. His birthplace was the village of Cuiheng, Xiangshan County (now Zhongshan City), Guangdong Province. He had a cultural background of Hakka  and Cantonese. After finishing primary education, he moved to Honolulu in the Kingdom of Hawaii, where he lived a comfortable life of modest wealth supported by his elder brother Sun Mei.

Education years

At the age of 10, Sun Yat-sen began seeking schooling. It is also at this point where he met childhood friend Lu Haodong.  By age 13 in 1878 after receiving a few years of local schooling, Sun went to live with his elder brother, Sun Mei () in Honolulu.

Sun Yat-sen then studied at Iolani School where he learned English, British history, mathematics, science, and Christianity.  Originally unable to speak the English language, Sun Yat-sen picked up the language so quickly that he received a prize for outstanding achievement from King David Kalākaua.   Sun graduated from Iolani in 1882. He then attended Oahu College (now known as Punahou School) for one semester.   In 1883 he was soon sent home to China as his brother was becoming afraid that Sun Yat-sen would embrace Christianity.

When he returned home in 1883 at age 17, Sun met up with his childhood friend Lu Haodong at Beijidian (), a temple in Cuiheng Village.  They saw many villagers worshipping the Beiji (literally North Pole) Emperor-God in the temple, and were dissatisfied with their ancient healing methods.  They broke the statue, incurring the wrath of fellow villagers, and escaped to Hong Kong.    While in Hong Kong in 1883 he studied at the Diocesan Boys' School, and from 1884 to 1886 he was at the Government Central School. 

In 1886 Sun studied medicine at the Guangzhou Boji Hospital under the Christian missionary John G. Kerr. Ultimately, he earned the license of Christian practice as a medical doctor from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (the forerunner of The University of Hong Kong) in 1892.  Notably, of his class of 12 students, Sun was one of only two who graduated.   

Christian baptism

In the early 1880s, Sun Mei sent his brother to ʻIolani School, which was under the supervision of British Anglicans and directed by an Anglican prelate called Alfred Willis. The language of instruction was English. Although Bishop Willis emphasized that no one was forced to accept Christianity, the students were required to attend chapel on Sunday. At Iolani School, young Sun Wen first came in contact with Christianity, and it made a deep impression on him. Schriffin writes that Christianity was to have a great influence on Sun's whole future political life. 

Sun was later baptized in Hong Kong by an American missionary of the Congregational Church of the United States to his brother's disdain. The minister would also develop a friendship with Sun.   Sun attended To Tsai Church (), founded by the London Missionary Society in 1888,  while he studied Western Medicine in Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. Sun pictured a revolution as similar to the salvation mission of the Christian church. His conversion to Christianity was related to his revolutionary ideals and push for advancement.

Transformation into a revolutionary

Four Bandits

During the Qing Dynasty rebellion around 1888, Sun was in Hong Kong with a group of revolutionary thinkers who were nicknamed the Four Bandits at the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese.   Sun, who had grown increasingly frustrated by the conservative Qing government and its refusal to adopt knowledge from the more technologically advanced Western nations, quit his medical practice in order to devote his time to transforming China.

Furen and Revive China Society

In 1891, Sun met revolutionary friends in Hong Kong including Yeung Ku-wan who was the leader and founder of the Furen Literary Society.   The group was spreading the idea of overthrowing the Qing.  In 1894, Sun wrote an 8,000 character [http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/上李鴻章書 petition] to Qing Viceroy Li Hongzhang presenting his ideas for modernizing China.    He traveled to Tianjin to personally present the petition to Li but was not granted an audience.  After this experience, Sun turned irrevocably toward revolution.  He left China for Hawaii and founded the Revive China Society, which was committed to revolutionizing China’s prosperity. Members were drawn mainly from Chinese expatriates, especially the lower social classes. The same month in 1894 the Furen Literary Society was merged with the Hong Kong chapter of the Revive China Society.  Thereafter, Sun became the secretary of the newly merged Revive China society, which Yeung Ku-wan headed as president.(Chinese) Yang, Bayun; Yang, Xing'an (November 2010). Yeung Ku-wan – A Biography Written by a Family Member. Bookoola. p. 17. ISBN 978-988-18-0416-7 They disguised their activities in Hong Kong under the running of a "Qianheng Company" (). 

First Sino-Japanese War

In 1895, China suffered a serious defeat during the First Sino-Japanese War.  There were two types of responses.  One group of intellectuals contended that the Manchu Qing government could restore its legitimacy by successfully modernizing.   Stressing that overthrowing the Manchu would result in chaos and would lead to China being carved up by imperialists, intellectuals like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao supported responding with initiatives like the Hundred Days' Reform.  In another faction, Sun Yat-sen and others like Zou Rong wanted a revolution to replace the dynastic system with a modern nation-state in the form of a republic.  The Hundred Days' reform turned out to be a failure by 1898. 

From uprising to exile

First Guangzhou uprising

In the second year of the establishment of the Revive China society on 26 October 1895, the group planned and launched the First Guangzhou uprising against the Qing in Guangzhou.  Yeung Kui-wan directed the uprising starting from Hong Kong. However, plans were leaked out and more than 70 members, including Lu Haodong, were captured by the Qing government.  The uprising was a failure. Sun received financial support mostly from his brother who sold most of his 12,000 acres of ranch and cattle in Hawaii.

Exile in Japan

Sun Yat-sen spent time living in Japan while in exile.  He befriended and was financially aided by a democratic revolutionary named Miyazaki Toten. Most Japanese who actively worked with Sun were motivated by a pan-Asian fear of encroaching Western imperialism.  While in Japan, Sun also met and befriended Mariano Ponce, then a diplomat of the First Philippine Republic.  During the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine–American War, Sun helped Ponce procure weapons salvaged from the Imperial Japanese Army and ship the weapons to the Philippines. By helping the Philippine Republic, Sun hoped that the Filipinos would win their independence so that he could use the archipelago as a staging point of another revolution. However, as the war ended in July 1902, America emerged victorious from a bitter 3-year war against the Republic. Therefore, the Filipino dream of independence vanished with Sun's hopes of collaborating with the Philippines in his revolution in China. 

Huizhou uprising in China

On 22 October 1900, Sun launched the Huizhou uprising to attack Huizhou and provincial authorities in Guangdong.   This came five years after the failed Guangzhou uprising.  This time, Sun appealed to the triads for help.   This uprising was also a failure.  Miyazaki who participated in the revolt with Sun wrote an account of this revolutionary effort under the title "33-year dream" () in 1902.  

Further exile

Sun was in exile not only in Japan but also in Europe, the United States, and Canada.  He raised money for his revolutionary party and to support uprisings in China. In 1896 he was detained at the Chinese Legation in London, where the Chinese Imperial secret service planned to kill him. He was released after 12 days through the efforts of James Cantlie, The Times, and the Foreign Office, leaving Sun a hero in Britain.Contrary to popular legends, Sun entered the Legation voluntarily, but was prevented from leaving. The Legation planned to execute him, before returning his body to Beijing for ritual beheading. Cantlie, his former teacher, was refused a writ of habeas corpus because of the Legation's diplomatic immunity, but he began a campaign through The Times. The Foreign Office persuaded the Legation to release Sun through diplomatic channels.
Source: 
 as summarized in
 James Cantlie, Sun's former teacher at the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, maintained a lifelong friendship with Sun and would later write an early biography of Sun. 

Heaven and Earth Society, overseas travel

A "Heaven and Earth Society" sect known as Tiandihui had been around for a long time.   The group has also been referred to as the "three cooperating organizations" as well as the triads.  Sun Yat-sen mainly used this group to leverage his overseas travels to gain further financial and resource support for his revolution.

According to Lee Yun-ping, chairman of the Chinese historical society, Sun needed a certificate to enter the United States at a time when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 would have otherwise blocked him.  However, on Sun's first attempt to enter the US, he was still arrested.  He was later bailed out after 17 days. In March 1904, while residing in Kula, Maui, Sun Yat-sen obtained a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth, issued by the Territory of Hawaii, stating that "he was born in the Hawaiian Islands on the 24th day of November, A.D. 1870."  He renounced it after it served its purpose to circumvent the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.Smyser, A.A. (2000). [http://archives.starbulletin.com/2000/03/16/editorial/smyser.html Sun Yat-sen’s strong links to Hawaii]. Honolulu Star Bulletin. "Sun renounced it in due course. It did, however, help him circumvent the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which became applicable when Hawaii was annexed to the United States in 1898." Official files of the United States show that Sun had United States nationality, moved to China with his family at age 4, and returned to Hawaii 10 years later. 

Revolution

Tongmenghui

In 1904, Sun Yat-sen came about with the goal "to expel the Tatar barbarians (i.e. Manchu), to revive Zhonghua, to establish a Republic, and to distribute land equally among the people."  ().   One of Sun's major legacies was the creation of his political philosophy of the Three Principles of the People.  These Principles included the principle of nationalism (minzu, ), of democracy (minquan, ), and of welfare (minsheng, ).

On 20 August 1905, Sun joined forces with revolutionary Chinese students studying in Tokyo, Japan to form the unified group Tongmenghui (United League), which sponsored uprisings in China.   By 1906 the number of Tongmenghui members reached 963 people.

Malaya support

Sun's notability and popularity extends beyond the Greater China region, particularly to Nanyang (Southeast Asia), where a large concentration of overseas Chinese resided in Malaya (Malaysia and Singapore).  While in Singapore, he met local Chinese merchants Teo Eng Hock, Tan Chor Nam and Lim Nee Soon, which mark the commencement of direct support from the Nanyang Chinese. The Singapore chapter of the Tongmenghui was established on 6 April 1906.   Though some records claim the founding date to be end of 1905.  The villa used by Sun was known as Wan Qing Yuan.   At this point Singapore was the headquarters of the Tongmenghui.

Thus, after founding the Tong Meng Hui, Dr Sun advocated the establishment of The Chong Shing Yit Pao as the alliance’s mouthpiece to promote revolutionary ideas. Later, he initiated the establishment of reading clubs across Singapore and Malaysia, in order to disseminate revolutionary ideas among the lower class through public readings of newspaper stories. The United Chinese Library, founded on 8 August 1910, was one such reading club, first set up at leased property on the second floor of the Wan He Salt Traders in North Boat Quay.

The first actual United Chinese Library building was built between 1908 and 1911 below Fort Canning - 51 Armenian Street, commenced operations in 1912.  The library was set up as a part of the 50 reading rooms by the Chinese Republicans to serve as an information station and liaison point for the revolutionaries. In 1987, the library was moved to its present site at Cantonment Road. But the Armenian Street building is still intact with the plaque at its entrance with Sun Yat Sen's words. With an initial membership of over 400, the library has about 180 members today. Although the United Chinese Library, with 102 years of history, was not the only reading club in Singapore during the time, today it is the only one of its kind remaining.

Zhennanguan uprising

On 1 December 1907, Sun led the Zhennanguan uprising against the Qing at Friendship Pass, which is the border between Guangxi and Vietnam.   The uprising failed after seven days of fighting.   In 1907 there were a total of four uprisings that failed including Huanggang uprising, Huizhou seven women lake uprising and Qinzhou uprising.  In 1908 two more uprisings failed one after another including Qin-lian uprising and Hekou uprising.

Anti-Sun movements

Because of these failures, Sun's leadership was beginning to be challenged by elements from within the Tongmenghui who wished to remove him as leader.  In Tokyo 1907–1908 members from the recently merged Restoration society raised doubts about Sun's credentials.  Tao Chengzhang () and Zhang Binglin publicly denounced Sun with an open leaflet called "A declaration of Sun Yat-sen's criminal acts by the revolutionaries in Southeast Asia". This was printed and distributed in reformist newspapers like Nanyang Zonghui Bao.   Their goal was to target Sun as a leader leading a revolt for profiteering gains.

The revolutionaries were polarized and split between pro-Sun and anti-Sun camps.  Sun publicly fought off comments about how he had something to gain financially from the revolution. However, by 19 July 1910, the Tongmenghui headquarters had to relocate from Singapore to Penang to reduce the anti-Sun activities.  It is also in Penang that Sun and his supporters would launch the first Chinese "daily" newspaper, the Kwong Wah Yit Poh in December 1910.

1911 revolution

To sponsor more uprisings, Sun made a personal plea for financial aid at the Penang conference held on 13 November 1910 in Malaya.Bergère: 188  The leaders launched a major drive for donations across the Malay Peninsula.  They raised HK$187,000.

On 27 April 1911, revolutionary Huang Xing led a second Guangzhou uprising known as the Yellow Flower Mound revolt against the Qing.  The revolt failed and ended in disaster; the bodies of only 72 revolutionaries were found.   The revolutionaries are remembered as martyrs.

On 10 October 1911, a military uprising at Wuchang took place led again by Huang Xing.  At the time, Sun had no direct involvement as he was still in exile.  Huang was in charge of the revolution that ended over 2000 years of imperial rule in China.  When Sun learned of the successful rebellion against the Qing emperor from press reports, he immediately returned to China from the United States accompanied by his American military advisor, "General" Homer Lea, on 21 December 1911. 

The uprising expanded to the Xinhai Revolution also known as the "Chinese Revolution" to overthrow the last Emperor Puyi.  After this event, 10 October became known as the commemoration of Double Ten Day. 

Republic of China with many governments

Provisional government

On 29 December 1911 a meeting of representatives from provinces in Nanking (Nanjing) elected Sun Yat-sen as the "provisional president" ().   January 1, 1912 was set as the first day of the First Year of the Republic.   Li Yuanhong was made provisional vice-president and Huang Xing became the minister of the army.  The new Provisional Government of the Republic of China was created along with the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China.  Sun is credited for the funding of the revolutions and for keeping the spirit of revolution alive, even after a series of failed uprisings. His successful merger of minor revolutionary groups to a single larger party provided a better base for all those who shared the same ideals.  A number of things were introduced such as the republic calendar system and new fashion like Zhongshan suits.

Beiyang government

Yuan Shikai, who controlled the Beiyang Army, the military of northern China, was promised the position of President of the Republic of China if he could get the Qing court to abdicate.  On 12 February 1912 Emperor Puyi did abdicate the throne.  Sun stepped down as President, and Yuan became the new provisional president in Beijing on 10 March 1912.  The provisional government did not have any military forces of its own, its control over elements of the New Army that had mutinied was limited and there were still significant forces which still had not declared against the Qing.

Sun Yat-sen sent telegrams to the leaders of all provinces requesting them to elect and to establish the National Assembly of the Republic of China in 1912.   In May 1912 the legislative assembly moved from Nanjing to Beijing with its 120 members divided between members of Tongmenghui and a Republican party that supported Yuan Shikai.   Many revolutionary members were already alarmed by Yuan's ambitions and the northern based Beiyang government.

Nationalist party and Second Revolution

Tongmenghui member Song Jiaoren quickly tried to control the parliament.  He mobilized the old Tongmenghui at the core with the merger of a number of new small parties to form a new political party called the Kuomintang (Chinese nationalist party, commonly abbreviated as "KMT") on 25 August 1912 at Huguang Guild Hall Beijing.  The 1912–1913 National assembly election was considered a huge success for the KMT winning 269 of the 596 seats in the lower house and 123 of the 274 senate seats.   The Second Revolution took place where Sun and KMT military forces tried to overthrow Yuan's forces of about 80,000 men in an armed conflict in July 1913.  The revolt against Yuan was unsuccessful. Sun was forced to seek asylum in Japan with politician and industrialist Fusanosuke Kuhara. In retaliation the national party leader Song Jiaoren was assassinated, almost certainly by a secret order of Yuan, on 20 March 1913.

Political chaos

In 1915 Yuan Shikai proclaimed the Empire of China (1915–1916) with himself as Emperor of China.  Sun took part in the Anti-Monarchy war of the Constitutional Protection Movement, while also supporting bandit leaders like Bai Lang during the Bai Lang Rebellion.  This marked the beginning of the Warlord Era.  In 1915 Sun wrote to the Second International, a socialist-based organization in Paris, asking it to send a team of specialists to help China set up the world's first socialist republic.   At the time there were many theories and proposals of what China could be.  In the political mess, even when Sun Yat-sen was announced as President, Xu Shichang was also announced as President of the Republic of China. 

Path to Northern Expedition

Guangzhou militarist government

China had become divided between different military leaders without a proper central government. Sun saw the danger of this and returned to China in 1917 to advocate Chinese reunification.  In 1921 he started a self-proclaimed military government in Guangzhou and was elected Grand Marshal.Bergère & Lloyd: 273  Between 1912 and 1927 three governments had been set up in South China: the Provisional government in Nanjing (1912), the Military government in Guangzhou (1921–1925), and the National government in Guangzhou and later Wuhan (1925–1927).  The southern separatist government in the South was established to rival the Beiyang government in the north.  Yuan Shikai had banned the KMT.  The short lived Chinese Revolutionary Party was a temporary replacement for the KMT.  On 10 October 1919 Sun resurrected the KMT with the new name Chung-kuo Kuomintang (), or the "Nationalist Party of China".

KMT–CPC cooperation

By this time Sun had become convinced that the only hope for a unified China lay in a military conquest from his base in the south, followed by a period of political tutelage that would culminate in the transition to democracy.  In order to hasten the conquest of China, he began a policy of active cooperation with the Communist Party of China (CPC).  Sun and the Soviet Union's Adolph Joffe signed the Sun-Joffe Manifesto in January 1923.   Sun received help from the Comintern for his acceptance of communist members into his KMT.  Revolutionary and socialist leader Vladimir Lenin praised Sun and the KMT for their ideology and principles. Lenin praised Sun and his attempts at social reformation, and also congratulated him for fighting foreign Imperialism.    Sun also returned the praise, calling him a "great man", and sent his congratulations on the revolution in Russia. 

With the Soviets' help, Sun was able to develop the military power needed for the Northern Expedition against the military at the north.  He established the Whampoa Military Academy near Guangzhou with Chiang Kai-shek as the commandant of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA).   Other Whampoa leaders include Wang Jingwei and Hu Hanmin as political instructors.  This full collaboration was called the First United Front.

Finance concerns

In 1924 Sun appointed his brother-in-law T. V. Soong to set up the first Chinese Central bank called the Canton Central Bank.   To establish national capitalism and a banking system was a major objective for the KMT.   However Sun was not without some opposition as there was the Canton volunteers corps uprising against him.

Final speeches

In February 1923 Sun made a presentation to the Students' Union in Hong Kong University and declared that it was the corruption of China and the peace, order and good government of Hong Kong that turned him into a revolutionary.    This same year, he delivered a speech in which he proclaimed his Three Principles of the People as the foundation of the country and the Five-Yuan Constitution as the guideline for the political system and bureaucracy. Part of the speech was made into the National Anthem of the Republic of China.

On 10 November 1924, Sun traveled north to Tianjin and delivered a speech to suggest a gathering for a "National conference" for the Chinese people.  It called for the end of warlord rules and the abolition of all unequal treaties with the Western powers.  Two days later, he traveled to Beijing to discuss the future of the country, despite his deteriorating health and the ongoing civil war of the warlords. Among the people he met was the Muslim General Ma Fuxiang, who informed Sun that they would welcome the leadership of Dr. Sun.  On 28 November 1924 Sun traveled to Japan and gave a speech on Pan-Asianism at Kobe, Japan. 

Death

Sun died of liver cancer on 12 March 1925 at the age of 58 at the Rockefeller-financed Peking Union Medical College.   In keeping with common Chinese practice, his remains were placed in the Temple of Azure Clouds, a Buddhist shrine in the Western Hills a few miles outside of Beijing.   He also left a short political will (總理遺囑) penned by Wang Jingwei to address the mass, which had a widespread influence in the subsequent development of the Republic of China and Taiwan. 

A mausoleum was built and completed in 1929. On 1 June 1929, Sun's remains were relocated from Beijing and buried in Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing.

Legacy

Power struggle

After Sun's death, a power struggle between his young protégé Chiang Kai-shek and his old revolutionary comrade Wang Jingwei split the KMT. At stake in this struggle was the right to lay claim to Sun's ambiguous legacy. In 1927 Chiang Kai-shek married Soong Mei-ling, a sister of Sun's widow Soong Ching-ling, and subsequently he could claim to be a brother-in-law of Sun. When the Communists and the Kuomintang split in 1927, marking the start of the Chinese Civil War, each group claimed to be his true heirs, a conflict that continued through World War II.  Sun's widow, Soong Ching-ling, sided with the Communists during the Chinese Civil War and served from 1949 to 1981 as Vice-President (or Vice-Chairwoman) of the People's Republic of China and as Honorary President shortly before her death in 1981.

Cult of personality

A personality cult in the Republic of China was centered on Sun and his successor, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Chinese Muslim Generals and Imams participated in this cult of personality and one party state, with Muslim General Ma Bufang making people bow to Sun's portrait and listen to the national anthem during a Tibetan and Mongol religious ceremony for the Qinghai Lake God.  Quotes from the Quran and Hadith were used by Muslims to justify Chiang Kai-shek's rule over China. 

The Kuomintang's constitution designated Sun as party president.  After his death, the Kuomintang opted to keep that language in its constitution to honor his memory forever.  The party has since been headed by a director-general (1927-1975) and a chairman (since 1975), which discharge the functions of the president.

Father of the Nation

Sun Yat-sen remains unique among 20th-century Chinese leaders for having a high reputation both in mainland China and in Taiwan. In Taiwan, he is seen as the Father of the Republic of China, and is known by the posthumous name Father of the Nation, Mr. Sun Zhongshan (, where the one-character space is a traditional homage symbol). His likeness is still almost always found in ceremonial locations such as in front of legislatures and classrooms of public schools, from elementary to senior high school, and he continues to appear in new coinage and currency.

"Forerunner of the revolution"

On the mainland, Sun is seen as a Chinese nationalist and proto-socialist, and is highly regarded as the Forerunner of the Revolution (). He is even mentioned by name in the preamble to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China.
In recent years, the leadership of the Communist Party of China has increasingly invoked Sun, partly as a way of bolstering Chinese nationalism in light of Chinese economic reform and partly to increase connections with supporters of the Kuomintang on Taiwan which the PRC sees as allies against Taiwan independence.
Sun's tomb was one of the first stops made by the leaders of both the Kuomintang and the People First Party on their pan-blue visit to mainland China in 2005.  A massive portrait of Sun continues to appear in Tiananmen Square for May Day and National Day.

Religious veneration

Sun is venerated as a Saint in Đạo Cao Đài, a religion established in Vietnam in 1926. He, along with the two other Saints Victor Hugo and Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm, represented mankind to declare the Alliance (peaceful treaty) with God. 

Family

Sun Yat-sen was born to Sun Dacheng () and his wife, lady Yang () on 12 November 1866.   At the time his father was age 53, while his mother was 38 years old.  By the time he was born, he already had an older brother Sun Dezhang (), an older sister Sun Jinxing () who died at the early age of 4.  Another older brother Sun Deyou () also died at the age of 6.  He had two other sisters Sun Miaoxi (), who was older and Sun Qiuqi () who was younger.

Sun had an arranged marriage with fellow villager Lu Muzhen at the age of 20. She bore him a son Sun Fo and two daughters, Sun Jinyuan () and Sun Jinwan (). Sun Fo was the father of Leland Sun, who spent 37 years working in Hollywood as an actor and stuntman.  Sun Yat-sen was also the godfather of American author and poet Cordwainer Smith.

Sun subsequently married Soong Ching-ling, one of the Soong sisters. They were married in Japan on 25 October 1915. 

Soong Ching-Ling's father was the American-educated Methodist minister Charles Soong, who made a fortune in banking and printing of bibles; though he had been a personal friend of Sun's, he was enraged when Sun announced his intention to marry Ching-ling because Sun was himself a Christian yet kept two wives, Lu Muzhen and Kaoru Otsuki; Soong viewed Sun's actions as running directly against their shared religion.

Soong Ching-Ling's sister, Soong Mei-ling, later married Chiang Kai-shek.

Cultural references

Memorials and structures in Asia

In most major Chinese cities one of the main streets is named Zhongshan Lu () to celebrate his memory. There are also numerous parks, schools, and geographical features named after him. Xiangshan, Sun's hometown in Guangdong, was renamed Zhongshan in his honor, and there is a hall dedicated to his memory at the Temple of Azure Clouds in Beijing. There are also a series of Sun Yat-sen stamps.

Other references to Sun include the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung. Other structures include Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, Sun Yat-sen subway station, Sun Yat-sen house in Nanjing, Dr. Sun Yat-sen Museum in Hong Kong, Chung-Shan Building in the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei and Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall in Singapore. Zhongshan Memorial Middle School has also been a name used by many schools. Zhongshan Park is also a common name used for a number of places named after him.  The first highway in Taiwan is called the Sun Yat-sen expressway. Two ships are also named after him, the Chinese gunboat Chung Shan and Chinese cruiser Yat Sen. The old Chinatown in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata), India has a prominent street by the name of Sun Yat-sen street.

In Penang, Malaysia, the Penang Philomatic Union had its premises at 120 Armenian Street in 1910, during the time when Sun spent more than four months in Penang, convened the historic "Penang Conference" to launch the fundraising campaign for the Huanghuagang Uprising and founded the Kwong Wah Yit Poh; this house, which has been preserved as the Sun Yat-sen Museum Penang (formerly called the Sun Yat Sen Penang Base), was visited by President designate Hu Jintao in 2002. The Penang Philomatic Union subsequently moved to a bungalow at 65 Macalister Road which has been preserved as the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Centre Penang.

As dedication, the 1966 Chinese Cultural Renaissance was launched on Sun's birthday on 12 November. 

The Nanyang Wan Qing Yuan in Singapore have since been preserved and renamed as the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall.  A Sun Yat-sen heritage trail was also launched on 20 November 2010 in Penang. 

Sun's US citizen Hawaii birth certificate that show he was not born in the ROC, but instead born in the US was on public display at the American Institute in Taiwan on US Independence day 4 July 2011. 

A street in Medan, Indonesia is named "Jalan Sun Yat-Sen" in honour of him. 

Memorials and structures outside of Asia

St. John's University in New York City has a facility built in 1973, the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, built to resemble a traditional Chinese building in honor of Dr. Sun. 
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is located in Vancouver, the largest classical Chinese gardens outside of Asia.  There is the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Park in Chinatown, Honolulu.  In Sacramento, California there is a bronze statue of Sun in front of the Chinese Benevolent Association of Sacramento. Another statue of Sun Yat-sen can be found at Riverdale Park in Toronto, Canada. There is also the Moscow Sun Yat-sen University. In Chinatown, San Francisco, there is a 12-foot statue of him on St. Mary's Square.  In Chinatown, Los Angeles, there is a seated statue of him in Central Plaza. 

In late 2011, the Chinese Youth Society of Melbourne, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic Of China, unveiled, in a Lion Dance Blessing ceremony, a memorial statue of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen outside the Chinese Museum in Melbourne's Chinatown, on the spot where their traditional Chinese New Year Lion Dance always ends. 

In 1993 Lily Sun, one of Sun Yat-sen's granddaughters, donated books, photographs, artwork and other memorabilia to the Kapi`olani Community College library as part of the "Sun Yat-sen Asian collection".   During October and November every year the entire collection is shown.  In 1997 the "Dr Sun Yat-sen Hawaii foundation" was formed online as a virtual library.  In 2006 the NASA Mars Exploration Rover Spirit labeled one of the hills explored "Zhongshan". 

The plaque shown earlier in this article is by Dora Gordine, and is situated on the site of Sun's lodgings in London in 1896, 8 Grays Inn Place.  There is also a blue plaque commemorating Sun at The Kennels, Cottered, Hertfordshire, the country home of the Cantlies where Sun came to recuperate after his rescue from the legation in 1896.

A street named Sun Yat-Sen Avenue is located in Markham. This is the first such street name outside of Asia.

A statue of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen was made by Canadian artist Una Mavis Ehlert.

In popular culture

Opera

Dr. Sun Yat-sen  () is a 2011 Chinese-language western-style opera in three acts by the New York-based American composer Huang Ruo who was born in China and is a graduate of Oberlin College's Conservatory as well as the Juilliard School. The libretto was written by Candace Mui-ngam Chong, a recent collaborator with playwright David Henry Hwang. 
It was performed in Hong Kong in October 2011 and will be given its North American premiere on 26 July 2014 at The Santa Fe Opera.

TV series and films

The life of Sun is portrayed in various films, mainly The Soong Sisters and Road to Dawn. A fictionalized assassination attempt on his life was featured in Bodyguards and Assassins. He is also portrayed during his struggle to overthrow the Qing dynasty in Once Upon a Time in China II.  The TV series Towards the Republic features Ma Shaohua as Sun Yat-sen.  In the 100th anniversary tribute of the film 1911, Winston Chao played Sun. 

Performances

In 2010 a theatrical play Yellow Flower on slopes () was made. 
In 2011 there is also a mandopop group called "Zhongsan Road 100" () known for singing the song "Our father of the nation" (). 

Controversy

New Three Principles of the People

At one time CPC General secretary and PRC president Jiang Zemin claimed Sun Yat-sen had a "New Three Principles of the People" () which consisted of "working with the soviets, working with the communists and helping the farmers" ().    Lily Sun said the CPC was distorting Sun's legacy in 2001.  She then voiced her displeasure in 2002 in a private letter to Jiang about the distortion of history.  In 2008 Jiang Zemin was willing to offer US$10 million to sponsor a Xinhai Revolution anniversary celebration event.  According to Ming Pao she could not take the money because she would no longer have the freedom to communicate the revolution.  This concept is still currently available on Baike Baidu.

KMT emblem removal case

In 1981 Lily Sun took a trip to Sun Yat-sen mausoleum in Nanjing, People's Republic of China.  The emblem of the KMT had been removed from the top of his tomb.  On another visit in May 2011, she was surprised to find the four characters "General Rules of Meetings" (), a document that Sun wrote in reference to Robert's Rules of Order had been removed from a stone carving.

Father of Independent Taiwan issue

In November 2004 the ROC Ministry of Education proposed that Sun Yat-sen was not the father of Taiwan.  Instead Sun was a foreigner from mainland China.  Taiwanese Education minister Tu Cheng-sheng and Examination Yuan member Lin Yu-ti (), both of whom supported the proposal, had their portraits pelted with eggs in protest.   At a Sun Yat-sen statue in Kaohsiung, a 70-year-old ROC retired soldier slit his own throat to commit suicide as a way to protest the ministry proposal on the anniversary of Sun's birthday 12 November. The Emperor of Japan is the head of the Imperial Family and is the ceremonial head of state of Japan's system of constitutional monarchy. According to the 1947 constitution, he is "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people." Historically, he is also the highest authority of the Shinto religion as he and his family are said to be the direct descendants of the sun-goddess Amaterasu,  and his importance also lies in dealing with heavenly affairs, including Shinto ritual and rites throughout the nation.

In Japanese, the Emperor is called Tennō (天皇), which means "heavenly sovereign". In English, the use of the term Mikado (帝) for the Emperor was once common, but is now considered obsolete.

Currently, the Emperor of Japan is the only remaining monarch in the world reigning under the title of "Emperor". The Imperial House of Japan is the oldest continuing hereditary monarchy in the world.  In the Kojiki or Nihon Shoki, a book of Japanese history finished in the eighth century, it is said that Japan was founded in 660 BC by Emperor Jimmu. The current Emperor is Akihito. He acceded the Chrysanthemum Throne upon the death of his father, Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito), in 1989.

The role of the Emperor of Japan has historically alternated between a largely ceremonial symbolic role and that of an actual imperial ruler. Since the establishment of the first shogunate in 1192, the Emperors of Japan have rarely taken on a role as supreme battlefield commander, unlike many Western monarchs. Japanese Emperors have nearly always been controlled by external political forces, to varying degrees. In fact, between 1192 and 1867, the shoguns, or their shikken regents in Kamakura (1203–1333), were the de facto rulers of Japan, although they were nominally appointed by the Emperor. After the Meiji restoration in 1867, the Emperor was the embodiment of all sovereign power in the realm, as enshrined in the Meiji Constitution of 1889. His current status as a figurehead dates from the 1947 Constitution.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Imperial Palace has been called Kyūjō (宮城), later Kōkyo (皇居), and is located on the former site of Edo Castle in the heart of Tokyo. Earlier, Emperors resided in Kyoto for nearly eleven centuries.

The Emperor's Birthday (December 23) is a national holiday.

Current role

Unlike most constitutional monarchies, the Emperor is not the nominal Chief Executive. Article 65 of the Constitution explicitly vests executive power in the Cabinet, of which the Prime Minister is the leader. The Emperor is also not the (ceremonial) commander-in-chief of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The Japan Self-Defense Forces Act of 1954 also explicitly vests this role with the Prime Minister.

The Emperor's powers are limited only to important ceremonial functions. Article 4 of the Constitution stipulates that the Emperor "shall perform only such acts in matters of state as are provided for in the Constitution and he shall not have powers related to government." It also stipulates that "the advice and approval of the Cabinet shall be required for all acts of the Emperor in matters of state" (Article 3). Article 4 also states that these duties can be delegated by the Emperor as provided for by law.

While the Emperor formally appoints the Prime Minister to office, Article 6 of the Constitution requires him to appoint the candidate "as designated by the Diet", without specifically giving the Emperor the right to decline appointment.

Article 6 of the Constitution delegates the Emperor the following ceremonial roles:
#Appointment of the Prime Minister as designated by the Diet.
#Appointment of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as designated by the Cabinet.

The Emperor's other duties are laid down in article 7 of the Constitution, where it is stated that the "Emperor with the advice and approval of the Cabinet, shall perform the following acts in matters of state on behalf of the people":
#Promulgation of amendments of the constitution, laws, cabinet orders, and treaties.
#Convocation of the Diet.
#Dissolution of the House of Representatives.
#Proclamation of general election of members of the Diet.
#Attestation of the appointment and dismissal of Ministers of State and other officials as provided for by law, and of full powers and credentials of Ambassadors and Ministers.
#Attestation of general and special amnesty, commutation of punishment, reprieve, and restoration of rights.
#Awarding of honors.
#Attestation of instruments of ratification and other diplomatic documents as provided for by law.
#Receiving foreign ambassadors and ministers.
#Performance of ceremonial functions.

Regular ceremonies of the Emperor with a constitutional basis are the Imperial Investitures (Shinninshiki) in the Tokyo Imperial Palace and the Speech from the Throne ceremony in the House of Councillors in the National Diet Building. The latter ceremony opens ordinary and extra sessions of the Diet. Ordinary sessions are opened each January and also after new elections to the House of Representatives. Extra sessions usually convene in the autumn and are opened then. 

History

Although the Emperor has been a symbol of continuity with the past, the degree of power exercised by the Emperor has varied considerably throughout Japanese history. In the early 7th century, the Emperor had began to be called the . 

Origin

The earliest Emperor recorded in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki is Emperor Jimmu, who is said to be a descendant of Amaterasu's grandson Ninigi who descended from Heaven (Tenson kōrin). According to the Nihon Shoki, the Emperors have an unbroken male lineage that goes back more than 2,600 years. The key to the origin of the Japanese imperial line may lie within the ancient imperial tombs known as kofun. However, since the Meiji period, the Imperial Household Agency has refused to open the kofun to the public nor to archaeologists, citing their desire not to disturb the spirits of the past Emperors. In December 2006, the Imperial Household Agency reversed its position and decided to allow researchers to enter some of the kofun with no restrictions.

The title of Emperor was borrowed from China, being derived from Chinese characters and was retroactively applied to the legendary Japanese rulers who reigned prior to the 7th-8th centuries AD. 

Factional control

There have been six non-imperial families who have controlled Japanese emperors: the Soga (530s–645), the Fujiwara (850s–1070), the Taira (1159-1180s), the Minamoto (and Kamakura bakufu) (1192–1333), the Ashikaga (1336–1565), and the Tokugawa (1603–1867). However, every shogun from the Minamoto, Ashikaga, and Tokugawa families had to be officially recognized by the Emperors, who were still the source of sovereignty, although they could not exercise their powers independently from the Shogunate.

Disputes

The growth of the samurai class from the 10th century gradually weakened the power of the imperial family over the realm, leading to a time of instability. Emperors have been known to come into conflict with the reigning shogun from time to time. Some instances, such as Emperor Go-Toba's 1221 rebellion against the Kamakura shogunate and the 1336 Kemmu Restoration under Emperor Go-Daigo, show the power struggle between the imperial court and the military governments of Japan.

Territorial matters

Until recent centuries, Japan's territory did not include several remote regions of its modern-day territory. The name "Nippon" came into use only many centuries after the start of the current imperial line. Centralized government only began to appear shortly before and during the time of Prince Shōtoku (572-622). The Emperor was more like a revered embodiment of divine harmony than the head of an actual governing administration. In Japan, it has always been easy for ambitious lords to hold actual power, as such positions have not been inherently contradictory to the Emperor's position. The parliamentary government today continues a similar coexistence with the Emperor as have various shoguns, regents, warlords, guardians, etc.

Historically the titles of Tennō in Japanese have never included territorial designations as is the case with many European monarchs. The position of Emperor is a territory-independent phenomenon—the Emperor is the Emperor, even if he has followers only in one province (as was the case sometimes with the southern and northern courts).

Shoguns

From 1192 to 1867, sovereignty of the state was exercised by the shoguns, or their shikken regents (1203–1333), whose authority was conferred by Imperial warrant. When Portuguese explorers first came into contact with the Japanese (see Nanban period), they described Japanese conditions in analogy, likening the Emperor with great symbolic authority but little political power, to the Pope, and the Shogun to secular European rulers (e.g., the Holy Roman Emperor). In keeping with the analogy, they even used the term "Emperor" in reference to the shogun and their regent, e.g. in the case of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, whom missionaries called "Emperor Taico-sama" (from Taiko and the honorific sama).

Meiji restoration

After the United States Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry's Black Ships forcibly opened Japan to foreign trade, and the shogunate proved incapable of hindering the "barbarian" interlopers, the Emperor Kōmei began to assert himself politically. By the early 1860s, the relationship between the imperial court and the Shogunate was changing radically. Disaffected domains and ronin began to rally to the call of sonnō jōi ("revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians"). The domains of Satsuma and Chōshū, historic enemies of the Tokugawa, used this turmoil to unite their forces and won an important military victory outside of Kyoto against Tokugawa forces.

In 1868, imperial "restoration" was declared, and the Shogunate was dissolved. A new constitution described the Emperor as "the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty", whose rights included to sanction and promulgate laws, to execute them and to exercise "supreme command of the Army and the Navy". The liaison conference created in 1893 also made the Emperor the leader of the Imperial General Headquarters.

World War II

The role of the Emperor as head of the State Shinto religion was exploited during the war, creating an Imperial cult that led to kamikaze bombers and other fanaticism. This in turn led to the requirement in the Potsdam Declaration for the elimination "for all time [of] the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest". Following Japan's surrender, the Allies issued the Shinto Directive separating church and state within Japan, leading to the Humanity Declaration of the incumbent Emperor. Subsequently, a new constitution was drafted to define the role of the Emperor and the government.

Current constitution

The constitution provides for a parliamentary system of government and guarantees certain fundamental rights. Under its terms, the Emperor of Japan is "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people" and exercises a purely ceremonial role without the possession of sovereignty.

The constitution, also known as the ,  or the , was drawn up under the Allied occupation that followed World War II and was intended to replace Japan's previous militaristic and quasi-absolute monarchy system with a form of liberal democracy. Currently, it is a rigid document and no subsequent amendment has been made to it since its adoption.

Education

The Emperors traditionally had an education officer. In recent times, Emperor Taishō had Count Nogi Maresuke, Emperor Shōwa had Marshal-Admiral Marquis Tōgō Heihachirō, and Emperor Akihito had Elizabeth Gray Vining as well as Shinzo Koizumi as their tutors.

Addressing and naming

There are two Japanese words equivalent to the English word "Emperor": tennō (天皇, lit. "heavenly sovereign"), which is used exclusively to refer to the Emperor of Japan, and kōtei (皇帝, the title used for all other foreign Emperors), which is used primarily to describe non-Japanese Emperors. Sumeramikoto (lit. "the Imperial person") was also used in Old Japanese. The term tennō was used by the Emperors up until the Middle Ages; then, following a period of disuse, it was used again from the 19th century.   In English, the term mikado (御門 or 帝 or みかど), literally meaning "the honorable gate" (i.e. the gate of the imperial palace, which indicates the person who lives in and possesses the palace), was once used (as in The Mikado, a 19th-century operetta), but this term is now obsolete.  (Compare Sublime Porte, an old term for the Ottoman government.)

Traditionally, the Japanese considered it disrespectful to call any person by his given name, and more so for a person of noble rank. This convention is only slightly relaxed in modern age and now it is still unadvisable among friends to use the given name, but use of the family name is still common. In the case of the imperial family, it is considered extremely inappropriate to use the given name. Since Emperor Meiji, it has been customary to have one era per Emperor and to rename each Emperor after his death using the name of the era over which he presided. Prior to Emperor Meiji, the names of the eras were changed more frequently, and the posthumous names of the Emperors were chosen in a different manner.

Outside Japan, beginning with Emperor Shōwa, the Emperors are often referred to by their given names, both whilst alive and posthumously. For example, the previous Emperor is usually called Hirohito in English, although he was never referred to as Hirohito in Japan, and was renamed Shōwa Tennō after his death, which is the only name that Japanese speakers currently use when referring to him.

The current Emperor on the throne is typically referred to by the title Tennō Heika (天皇陛下, literally "His Majesty the Emperor"), Kinjō Heika (今上陛下, literally "His Current Majesty") or simply Tennō, when speaking Japanese. The current Emperor will be renamed Heisei Tennō (平成天皇) after his death and will then be referred to exclusively by that name in Japanese. Non-Japanese speakers typically refer to him as Emperor Akihito, and will almost certainly continue to do so after his death. It is considered a major faux pas to refer to a living Emperor by his posthumous name.

Origin of the title

Originally, the ruler of Japan was known as either 大和大王/大君 (Yamato-ōkimi, Grand King of Yamato), 倭王/倭国王 (Wa-ō/Wakoku-ō, King of Wa, used externally) or 治天下大王 (Ame-no-shita shiroshimesu ōkimi or Sumera no mikoto, Grand King who rules all under heaven, used internally) in Japanese and Chinese sources prior to the 7th century. The oldest documented use of the word "Tennō" is on a wooden slat, or mokkan, that was unearthed in Asuka-mura, Nara Prefecture in 1998 and dated back to the reign of Emperor Temmu and Empress Jitō.

Marriage traditions

Throughout history, Japanese Emperors and noblemen appointed the position of chief wife, rather than just keeping a harem or an assortment of female attendants.

The Japanese imperial dynasty consistently practiced official polygamy, a practice that only ended in the Taishō period (1912–1926). Besides the Empress, the Emperor could take, and nearly always took, several secondary consorts ("concubines") of various hierarchical degrees. Concubines were allowed also to other dynasts (Shinnōke, Ōke). After a decree by Emperor Ichijō, some Emperors even had two empresses simultaneously (kōgō and chūgū are the two separate titles for that situation). With the help of all this polygamy, the imperial clan thus was capable of producing more offspring. (Sons by secondary consorts were usually recognized as imperial princes, too, and could be recognized as heir to the throne if the empress did not give birth to an heir.)

Of the eight female Tennō (reigning empresses) of Japan, none married or gave birth after ascending the throne. Some of them, being widows, had produced children prior to their reigns.

In the succession, children of the empress were preferred over sons of secondary consorts. Thus it was significant which quarters had preferential opportunities in providing chief wives to imperial princes, i.e. supplying future empresses.

Apparently, the oldest tradition of official marriages within the imperial dynasty were marriages between dynasty members, even half-siblings or uncle and niece. Such marriages were deemed to preserve better the imperial blood or were aimed at producing children symbolic of a reconciliation between two branches of the imperial dynasty. Daughters of others remained concubines, until Emperor Shōmu (701-706) — in what was specifically reported as the first elevation of its kind — elevated his Fujiwara consort Empress Kōmyō to chief wife.

Japanese monarchs have been, as much as others elsewhere, dependent on making alliances with powerful chiefs and other monarchs. Many such alliances were sealed by marriages. The specific feature in Japan has been the fact that these marriages have been soon incorporated as elements of tradition which controlled the marriages of later generations, though the original practical alliance had lost its real meaning. A repeated pattern has been an imperial son-in-law under the influence of his powerful non-imperial father-in-law.

Beginning from the 7th and 8th centuries, Emperors primarily took women of the Fujiwara clan as their highest wives — the most probable mothers of future monarchs. This was cloaked as a tradition of marriage between heirs of two kami (Shinto deities): descendants of Amaterasu with descendants of the family kami of the Fujiwara. (Originally, the Fujiwara were descended from relatively minor nobility, thus their kami is an unremarkable one in the Japanese myth world.) To produce imperial children, heirs of the nation, with two-side descent from the two kami, was regarded as desirable — or at least it suited powerful Fujiwara lords, who thus received preference in the imperial marriage market. The reality behind such marriages was an alliance between an imperial prince and a Fujiwara lord, his father-in-law or grandfather, the latter with his resources supporting the prince to the throne and most often controlling the government. These arrangements created the tradition of regents (Sesshō and Kampaku), with these positions held only by a Fujiwara sekke lord.

Earlier, the Emperors had married women from families of the government-holding Soga lords, and women of the imperial clan itself, i.e. various-degree cousins and often even their own sisters (half-sisters). Several imperials of the 5th and 6th centuries such as Prince Shōtoku were children of half-sibling couples. These marriages often were alliance or succession devices: the Soga lord ensured his domination of a prince who would be put on the throne as a puppet; or a prince ensured the combination of two imperial descents, to strengthen his own and his children's claim to the throne. Marriages were also a means to seal a reconciliation between two imperial branches.

After a couple of centuries, Emperors could no longer take anyone from outside such families as primary wife, no matter what the expediency of such a marriage and power or wealth brought by such might have been. Only very rarely did a prince ascend the throne whose mother was not descended from the approved families. The earlier necessity and expediency had mutated into a strict tradition that did not allow for current expediency or necessity, but only dictated that daughters of a restricted circle of families were eligible brides, because they had produced eligible brides for centuries. Tradition had become more forceful than law.

Fujiwara women were often Empresses, and concubines came from less exalted noble families. In the last thousand years, sons of an imperial male and a Fujiwara woman have been preferred in the succession.

The five Fujiwara families, Ichijō, Kujō, Nijō, Konoe, and Takatsukasa, were the primary source of imperial brides from the 8th century to the 19th century, even more often than daughters of the imperial clan itself. Fujiwara daughters were thus the usual empresses and mothers of Emperors.

This restriction on brides for the Emperor and crown prince was made explicit in the Meiji-era Imperial House Law of 1889. A clause stipulated that daughters of Sekke (the five main branches of the higher Fujiwara) and daughters of the imperial clan itself were primarily acceptable brides.

The law was repealed in the aftermath of World War II. The present Emperor, Akihito, became the first crown prince for over a thousand years to marry a consort from outside the previously eligible circle.

Burial traditions

During the Kofun Period, so-called "archaic funerals" were held for the dead Emperors, but only the funerary rites from the end of the period, which the chronicles describe in more detail, are known. They were centered around the rite of the mogari, a provisional depository between death and permanent burial. 

Empress Jitō was the first Japanese imperial personage to be cremated (in 703). After that, with a few exceptions, all Emperors were cremated up to the Edo Period. For the next 350 years, in-ground burial became the favoured funeral custom. In 2013, the Imperial Household Agency announced that Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko would be cremated after they die. 

Until 1912, the Emperors of Japan were usually buried in Kyoto.  From the Taishō Emperor onward, the Emperors have been buried at the Musashi Imperial Graveyard in Tokyo.

Succession

The Japanese imperial dynasty bases its position in the expression that it has "reigned since time immemorial" (万世一系 bansei ikkei). It is true that its origins are buried in the mists of time: there are no records of any Emperor who was not said to have been a descendant of other, yet earlier Emperors. There is suspicion that Emperor Keitai (c. 500 AD) may have been an unrelated outsider, though the sources state that he was a male-line descendant of Emperor Ōjin. However, his descendants, including his successors, were according to records descended from at least one and probably several imperial princesses of the older lineage. The tradition built by those legends has chosen to recognize just the putative male ancestry as valid for legitimizing his succession, not giving any weight to ties through the said princesses.

Millennia ago, the Japanese imperial family developed its own peculiar system of hereditary succession. It has been non-primogenitural, more or less agnatic, based mostly on rotation. Today, Japan uses strict agnatic primogeniture, which was adopted from Prussia, by which Japan was greatly influenced in the 1870s.

The controlling principles and their interaction were apparently very complex and sophisticated, leading to even idiosyncratic outcomes. Some chief principles apparent in the succession have been:
* Women were allowed to succeed (but there existed no known children of theirs whose father did not also happen to be an agnate of the imperial house, thus there is neither a precedent that a child of an imperial woman with a non-imperial man could inherit, nor a precedent forbidding it for children of empresses). However, female accession was clearly much more rare than male.
* Adoption was possible and a much used way to increase the number of succession-entitled heirs (however, the adopted child had to be a child of another member agnate of the imperial house).
* Abdication was used very often, and in fact occurred more often than death on the throne. In those days, the Emperor's chief task was priestly (or godly), containing so many repetitive rituals that it was deemed that after a service of around ten years, the incumbent deserved pampered retirement as an honored former Emperor.
* Primogeniture was not used — rather, in the early days, the imperial house practiced something resembling a system of rotation. Very often a brother (or sister) followed the elder sibling even in the case of the predecessor leaving children. The "turn" of the next generation came more often after several individuals of the senior generation. Rotation went often between two or more of the branches of the imperial house, thus more or less distant cousins succeeded each other. Emperor Go-Saga even decreed an official alternation between heirs of his two sons, which system continued for a couple of centuries (leading finally to shogun-induced (or utilized) strife between these two branches, the "southern" and "northern" Emperors). Towards the end, the alternates were very distant cousins counted in degrees of male descent (but all that time, intermarriages occurred within the imperial house, thus they were close cousins if female ties are counted). During the past five hundred years, however, probably due to Confucian influence, inheritance by sons — but not always, or even most often, the eldest son has been the norm.

Historically, the succession to the Chrysanthemum Throne has always passed to descendants in male line from the imperial lineage. Generally, they have been males, though of the over one hundred monarchs there have been nine women (one pre-historical and eight historical) as Emperor on eleven occasions.

Over a thousand years ago, a tradition started that an Emperor should ascend relatively young. A dynast who had passed his toddler years was regarded suitable and old enough. Reaching the age of legal majority was not a requirement. Thus, a multitude of Japanese Emperors have ascended as children, as young as 6 or 8 years old. The high-priestly duties were deemed possible for a walking child. A reign of around ten years was regarded a sufficient service. Being a child was apparently a fine property, to better endure tedious duties and to tolerate subjugation to political power-brokers, as well as sometimes to cloak the truly powerful members of the imperial dynasty. Almost all Japanese empresses and dozens of Emperors abdicated, and lived the rest of their lives in pampered retirement, wielding influence behind the scenes. Several Emperors abdicated to their entitled retirement while still in their teens. These traditions show in Japanese folklore, theater, literature, and other forms of culture, where the Emperor is usually described or depicted as an adolescent.

Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan had eleven reigns of reigning empresses, all of them daughters of the male line of the Imperial House. None ascended purely as a wife or as a widow of an Emperor. Imperial daughters and granddaughters, however, usually ascended the throne as a sort of a "stop gap" measure — if a suitable male was not available or some imperial branches were in rivalry so that a compromise was needed. Over half of Japanese empresses and many Emperors abdicated once a suitable male descendant was considered to be old enough to rule (just past toddlerhood, in some cases).  Four empresses, Empress Suiko, Empress Kōgyoku (also Empress Saimei), and Empress Jitō, as well as the mythical Empress Jingū, were widows of deceased Emperors and princesses of the blood imperial in their own right. One, Empress Gemmei, was the widow of a crown prince and a princess of the blood imperial. The other four, Empress Genshō, Empress Kōken (also Empress Shōtoku), Empress Meishō, and Empress Go-Sakuramachi, were unwed daughters of previous Emperors. None of these empresses married or gave birth after ascending the throne.

Article 2 of the Meiji Constitution (the Constitution of the Empire of Japan) stated, "The Imperial Throne shall be succeeded to by imperial male descendants, according to the provisions of the Imperial House Law." The 1889 Imperial Household Law fixed the succession on male descendants of the imperial line, and specifically excluded female descendants from the succession. In the event of a complete failure of the main line, the throne would pass to the nearest collateral branch, again in the male line. If the Empress did not give birth to an heir, the Emperor could take a concubine, and the son he had by that concubine would be recognized as heir to the throne. This law, which was promulgated on the same day as the Meiji Constitution, enjoyed co-equal status with that constitution.

Article 2 of the Constitution of Japan, promulgated in 1947 by influence of the U.S. occupation administration, provides that "The Imperial Throne shall be dynastic and succeeded to in accordance with the Imperial Household Law passed by the Diet." The Imperial Household Law of 1947, enacted by the ninety-second and last session of the Imperial Diet, retained the exclusion on female dynasts found in the 1889 law. The government of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru hastily cobbled together the legislation to bring the Imperial Household in compliance with the American-written Constitution of Japan that went into effect in May 1947. In an effort to control the size of the imperial family, the law stipulates that only legitimate male descendants in the male line can be dynasts; that imperial princesses lose their status as Imperial Family members if they marry outside the Imperial Family;  and that the Emperor and other members of the Imperial Family may not adopt children. It also prevented branches, other than the branch descending from Taishō, from being imperial princes any longer.

Current status

Succession is now regulated by laws passed by the National Diet. The current law excludes women from the succession. A change to this law had been considered until Princess Kiko gave birth to a son.

Until the birth of Prince Hisahito, son of Prince Akishino, on September 6, 2006, there was a potential succession problem, since Prince Akishino was the only male child to be born into the imperial family since 1965. Following the birth of Princess Aiko, there was public debate about amending the current Imperial Household Law to allow women to succeed to the throne. In January 2005, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appointed a special panel composed of judges, university professors, and civil servants to study changes to the Imperial Household Law and to make recommendations to the government.

The panel dealing with the succession issue recommended on October 25, 2005 amending the law to allow females of the male line of imperial descent to ascend the Japanese throne. On January 20, 2006, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi devoted part of his annual keynote speech to the controversy, pledging to submit a bill allowing women to ascend the throne to ensure that the succession continues in the future in a stable manner. Shortly after the announcement that Princess Kiko was pregnant with her third child, Koizumi suspended such plans. Her son, Prince Hisahito, is the third in line to the throne under the current law of succession. On January 3, 2007, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe announced that he would drop the proposal to alter the Imperial Household Law. A nation state is a type of state that conjoins the political entity of a state to the cultural entity of a nation, from which it aims to derive its political legitimacy to rule and potentially its status as a sovereign state if one accepts the declarative theory of statehood as opposed to the constitutive theory.Such a definition is a working one: "All attempts to develop terminological consensus around "nation" resulted in failure", concludes . Walker Connor, in [] discusses the impressions surrounding the characters of "nation", "(sovereign) state", "nation state", and "nationalism". Connor, who gave the term "ethnonationalism" wide currency, also discusses the tendency to confuse nation and state and the treatment of all states as if nation states. In Globalization and Belonging, Sheila L. Crouche discusses "The Definitional Dilemma" (pp. 85ff). 
A state is specifically a political and geopolitical entity, whilst a nation is a cultural and ethnic one. The term "nation state" implies that the two coincide, in that a state has chosen to adopt and endorse a specific cultural group as associated with it. "Nation state" formation can take place at different times in different parts of the world.

The concept of a nation state can be compared and contrasted with that of the multinational state, city state,    empire, confederation, and other state formations with which it may overlap. The key distinction is the identification of a people with a polity in the "nation state."

History and origins 

The origins and early history of nation states are disputed. A major theoretical question is: "Which came first, the nation or the nation state?" Scholars such as Steven Weber, David Woodward, and Jeremy Black   have advanced the hypothesis that the nation state didn't arise out of political ingenuity or an unknown undetermined source, nor was it an accident of history or political invention; but is an inadvertent byproduct of 15th-century intellectual discoveries in political economy, capitalism, mercantilism, political geography, and geography   combined together with cartography   and advances in map-making technologies.   It was with these intellectual discoveries and technological advances that the nation state arose. For others, the nation existed first, then nationalist movements arose for sovereignty, and the nation state was created to meet that demand. Some "modernization theories" of nationalism see it as a product of government policies to unify and modernize an already existing state. Most theories see the nation state as a 19th-century European phenomenon, facilitated by developments such as state-mandated education, mass literacy and mass media. However, historians also note the early emergence of a relatively unified state and identity in Portugal and the Dutch Republic.

In France, Eric Hobsbawm argues, the French state preceded the formation of the French people. Hobsbawm considers that the state made the French nation, not French nationalism, which emerged at the end of the 19th century, the time of the Dreyfus Affair. At the time of the 1789 French Revolution, only half of the French people spoke some French, and 12-13% spoke it "fairly", according to Hobsbawm.

During the Italian unification, the number of people speaking the Italian language was even lower. The French state promoted the unification of various dialects and languages into the French language. The introduction of conscription and the Third Republic's 1880s laws on public instruction, facilitated the creation of a national identity, under this theory.

Some nation states, such as Germany or Italy, came into existence at least partly as a result of political campaigns by nationalists, during the 19th century. In both cases, the territory was previously divided among other states, some of them very small. The sense of common identity was at first a cultural movement, such as in the Völkisch movement in German-speaking states, which rapidly acquired a political significance. In these cases, the nationalist sentiment and the nationalist movement clearly precede the unification of the German and Italian nation states.

Historians Hans Kohn, Liah Greenfeld, Philip White and others have classified nations such as Germany or Italy, where cultural unification preceded state unification, as ethnic nations or ethnic nationalities. However, 'state-driven' national unifications, such as in France, England or China, are more likely to flourish in multiethnic societies, producing a traditional national heritage of civic nations, or territory-based nationalities.    Some authors deconstruct the distinction between ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism because of the ambiguity of the concepts. They argue that the paradigmatic case of Ernest Renan is an idealisation and it should be interpreted within the German tradition and not in opposition to it. For example, they argue that the arguments used by Renan at the conference What is a nation? are not consistent with his thinking. This alleged civic conception of the nation would be determined only by the case of the loss gives Alsace and Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War. 

The idea of a nation state was and is associated with the rise of the modern system of states, often called the "Westphalian system" in reference to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). The balance of power, which characterized that system, depended on its effectiveness upon clearly defined, centrally controlled, independent entities, whether empires or nation states, which recognize each other's sovereignty and territory. The Westphalian system did not create the nation state, but the nation state meets the criteria for its component states (by assuming that there is no disputed territory).

The nation state received a philosophical underpinning in the era of Romanticism, at first as the 'natural' expression of the individual peoples (romantic nationalism: see Johann Gottlieb Fichte's conception of the Volk, later opposed by Ernest Renan). The increasing emphasis during the 19th century on the ethnic and racial origins of the nation, led to a redefinition of the nation state in these terms. Racism, which in Boulainvilliers's theories was inherently antipatriotic and antinationalist, joined itself with colonialist imperialism and "continental imperialism", most notably in pan-Germanic and pan-Slavic movements. 

The relation between racism and ethnic nationalism reached its height in the 20th century fascism and Nazism. The specific combination of 'nation' ('people') and 'state' expressed in such terms as the Völkische Staat and implemented in laws such as the 1935 Nuremberg laws made fascist states such as early Nazi Germany qualitatively different from non-fascist nation states. Minorities were not considered part of the people (Volk), and were consequently denied to have an authentic or legitimate role in such a state. In Germany, neither Jews nor the Roma were considered part of the people, and were specifically targeted for persecution. German nationality law defined 'German' on the basis of German ancestry, excluding all non-Germans from the people.

In recent years, a nation state's claim to absolute sovereignty within its borders has been much criticized. A global political system based on international agreements and supra-national blocs characterized the post-war era. Non-state actors, such as international corporations and non-governmental organizations, are widely seen as eroding the economic and political power of nation states, potentially leading to their eventual disappearance.

Before the nation state 

In Europe, during the 18th century, the classic non-national states were the multiethnic empires, the Austrian Empire, Kingdom of France, Kingdom of Hungary,  the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire and smaller nations at what would now be called sub-state level. The multi-ethnic empire was a monarchy ruled by a king, emperor or sultan. The population belonged to many ethnic groups, and they spoke many languages. The empire was dominated by one ethnic group, and their language was usually the language of public administration. The ruling dynasty was usually, but not always, from that group.

This type of state is not specifically European: such empires existed on all continents, except Australasia and Antarctica. Some of the smaller European states were not so ethnically diverse, but were also dynastic states, ruled by a royal house. Their territory could expand by royal intermarriage or merge with another state when the dynasty merged. In some parts of Europe, notably Germany, very small territorial units existed. They were recognised by their neighbours as independent, and had their own government and laws. Some were ruled by princes or other hereditary rulers, some were governed by bishops or abbots. Because they were so small, however, they had no separate language or culture: the inhabitants shared the language of the surrounding region.

In some cases these states were simply overthrown by nationalist uprisings in the 19th century. Liberal ideas of free trade played a role in German unification, which was preceded by a customs union, the Zollverein. However, the Austro-Prussian War, and the German alliances in the Franco-Prussian War, were decisive in the unification. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire broke up after the First World War, and the Russian Empire became the Soviet Union after the Russian Civil War.

A few of the smaller states survived: the independent principalities of Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, and the republic of San Marino. (Vatican City is a special case. All of the larger Papal State save the Vatican itself was occupied and absorbed by Italy by 1870.  The resulting Roman Question, was resolved with the rise of the modern state under the 1929 Lateran treaties between Italy and the Holy See.)

Characteristics 

 
"Legitimate states that govern effectively and dynamic industrial economies are widely regarded today as the defining characteristics of a modern nation-state." 

Nation states have their own characteristics, differing from those of the pre-national states. For a start, they have a different attitude to their territory when compared with dynastic monarchies: it is semisacred and nontransferable. No nation would swap territory with other states simply, for example, because the king's daughter married. They have a different type of border, in principle defined only by the area of settlement of the national group, although many nation states also sought natural borders (rivers, mountain ranges). They are constantly changing in population size and power because of the limited restrictions of their borders.

The most noticeable characteristic is the degree to which nation states use the state as an instrument of national unity, in economic, social and cultural life.

The nation state promoted economic unity, by abolishing internal customs and tolls. In Germany, that process, the creation of the Zollverein, preceded formal national unity. Nation states typically have a policy to create and maintain a national transportation infrastructure, facilitating trade and travel. In 19th-century Europe, the expansion of the rail transport networks was at first largely a matter for private railway companies, but gradually came under control of the national governments. The French rail network, with its main lines radiating from Paris to all corners of France, is often seen as a reflection of the centralised French nation state, which directed its construction. Nation states continue to build, for instance, specifically national motorway networks. Specifically transnational infrastructure programmes, such as the Trans-European Networks, are a recent innovation.

The nation states typically had a more centralised and uniform public administration than its imperial predecessors: they were smaller, and the population less diverse. (The internal diversity of the Ottoman Empire, for instance, was very great.) After the 19th-century triumph of the nation state in Europe, regional identity was subordinate to national identity, in regions such as Alsace-Lorraine, Catalonia, Brittany and Corsica. In many cases, the regional administration was also subordinated to central (national) government. This process was partially reversed from the 1970s onward, with the introduction of various forms of regional autonomy, in formerly centralised states such as France.

The most obvious impact of the nation state, as compared to its non-national predecessors, is the creation of a uniform national culture, through state policy. The model of the nation state implies that its population constitutes a nation, united by a common descent, a common language and many forms of shared culture. When the implied unity was absent, the nation state often tried to create it. It promoted a uniform national language, through language policy. The creation of national systems of compulsory primary education and a relatively uniform curriculum in secondary schools, was the most effective instrument in the spread of the national languages. The schools also taught the national history, often in a propagandistic and mythologised version, and (especially during conflicts) some nation states still teach this kind of history. 

Language and cultural policy was sometimes negative, aimed at the suppression of non-national elements. Language prohibitions were sometimes used to accelerate the adoption of national languages and the decline of minority languages (see examples: Anglicisation, Czechization, Francisation, Italianization, Germanisation, Magyarisation, Polonisation, Russification, Serbization, Slovakisation).

In some cases, these policies triggered bitter conflicts and further ethnic separatism. But where it worked, the cultural uniformity and homogeneity of the population increased. Conversely, the cultural divergence at the border became sharper: in theory, a uniform French identity extends from the Atlantic coast to the Rhine, and on the other bank of the Rhine, a uniform German identity begins. To enforce that model, both sides have divergent language policy and educational systems, although the linguistic boundary is in fact well inside France, and the Alsace region changed hands four times between 1870 and 1945.

In practice 

In some cases, the geographic boundaries of an ethnic population and a political state largely coincide. In these cases, there is little immigration or emigration, few members of ethnic minorities, and few members of the "home" ethnicity living in other countries.

Examples of nation states where ethnic groups make up more than 95% of the population include the following:
* Albania: The vast majority of the population is ethnically Albanian at about 98.6% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities.
* Armenia: The vast majority of Armenia's population consists of ethnic Armenians at about 98% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities.
* Bangladesh: The vast majority ethnic group of Bangladesh are the Bengali people, comprising 98% of the population, with the remainder consisting of mostly Bihari migrants and indigenous tribal groups. Therefore, Bangladeshi society is to a great extent linguistically and culturally homogeneous, with very small populations of foreign expatriates and workers, although there is a substantial number of Bengali workers living abroad.
* Egypt: The vast majority of Egypt's population consists of ethnic Egyptians at about 99% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities, as well as refugees or asylum seekers. Modern Egyptian identity is closely tied to the geography of Egypt and its long history; its development over the centuries saw overlapping or conflicting ideologies. Though today an Arabic-speaking people, that aspect constitutes for Egyptians a cultural dimension of their identity, not a necessary attribute of or prop for their national political being. Today most Egyptians see themselves, their history, culture and language (the Egyptian variant of Arabic) as specifically Egyptian and at the same time as part of the Arab world.
* Estonia: Defined as a nation state in its 1920 constitution, up until the period of Soviet colonialisation, Estonia was historically a very homogenous state with 88.2% of residents being Estonians, 8.2% Russians, 1.5% Germans and 0.4% Jews according to the 1934 census.  As a result of Soviet policies the demographic situation significantly changed with the arrival of Russian speaking settlers. Today Estonians form 69%, Russians 25.4%, Ukrainians 2.04% and Belarusians 1.1% of the population(2012).  A significant proportion of the inhabitants (84.1%) are citizens of Estonia, around 7.3% are citizens of Russia and 7.0% as yet undefined citizenship (2010).
* Hungary: The Hungarians (or Magyar) people consist of about 95% of the population, with a small Roma and German minority: see Demographics of Hungary.
* Iceland: Although the inhabitants are ethnically related to other Scandinavian groups, the national culture and language are found only in Iceland. There are no cross-border minorities as the nearest land is too far away: see Demographics of Iceland

* Japan: Japan is also traditionally seen as an example of a nation state and also the largest of the nation states, with population in excess of 120 million. It should be noted that Japan has a small number of minorities such as Ryūkyū peoples, Koreans and Chinese, and on the northern island of Hokkaidō, the indigenous Ainu minority. However, they are either numerically insignificant (Ainu), their difference is not as pronounced (though Ryukyuan culture is closely related to Japanese culture, it is nonetheless distinctive in that it historically received much more influence from China and has separate political and nonpolitical and religious traditions) or well assimilated (Zainichi population is collapsing due to assimilation/naturalisation).
* Lebanon: The Arabic-speaking Lebanese consist at about 95% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities, as well as refugees or asylum seekers. Modern Lebanese identity is closely tied to the geography of Lebanon and its history. Although they are now an Arabic-speaking people and ethnically homogeneous, its identity oversees overlapping or conflicting ideologies between its Phoenician heritage and Arab heritage. While many Lebanese regard themselves as Arab, other Lebanese regard themselves, their history, and their culture as Phoenician and not Arab, while still other Lebanese regard themselves as both.
* Lesotho: Lesotho's ethno-linguistic structure consists almost entirely of the Basotho (singular Mosotho), a Bantu-speaking people; about 99.7% of the population are Basotho.
* Maldives: The vast majority of the population is ethnically Dhivehi at about 98% of the population, with the remainder consisting of foreign workers; there are no indigenous ethnic minorities.
* Malta: The vast majority of the population is ethnically Maltese at about 95.3% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities.
* Mongolia: The vast majority of the population is ethnically Mongol at about 95.0% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few ethnic minorities included in Kazakhs.
* North and South Korea are among the most ethnically and linguistically homogeneous in the world. Particularly in reclusive North Korea, there are very few ethnic minority groups and expatriate foreigners.
* Poland: After World War II, with the genocide of the Jews by the invading German Nazis during the Holocaust, the expulsion of Germans after World War II and the loss of eastern territories (Kresy), 96.7% of the people of Poland claim Polish nationality, while 97.8% declare that they speak Polish at home (Census 2002).
* Several Polynesian countries such as Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, etc.
* Portugal: Although surrounded by other lands and people, the Portuguese nation has occupied the same territory since the romanization or latinization of the native population during the Roman era. The modern Portuguese nation is a very old amalgam of formerly distinct historical populations that passed through and settled in the territory of modern Portugal: native Iberian peoples, Celts, ancient Mediterraneans (Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Jews), invading Germanic peoples like the Suebi and the Visigoths, and Muslim Arabs and Berbers. Most Berber/Arab people and the Jews were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista and the repopulation by Christians.
* San Marino: The Sammarinese make up about 97% of the population and all speak Italian and are ethnically and linguisticially identical to Italians. San Marino is a landlocked enclave, completely surrounded by Italy. The state has a population of approximately 30,000, including 1,000 foreigners, most of whom are Italians.
* Swaziland: The vast majority of the population is ethnically Swazi at about 98.6% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities.

The notion of a unifying "national identity" also extends to countries that host multiple ethnic or language groups, such as India and China. For example, Switzerland is constitutionally a confederation of cantons, and has four official languages, but it has also a 'Swiss' national identity, a national history and a classic national hero, Wilhelm Tell. 

Innumerable conflicts have arisen where political boundaries did not correspond with ethnic or cultural boundaries.

After World War II in the Josip Broz Tito era, nationalism was appealed to for uniting South Slav peoples. Later in the 20th century, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, leaders appealed to ancient ethnic feuds or tensions that ignited conflict between the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, as well Bosnians, Montenegrins and Macedonians, eventually breaking up the long collaboration of peoples and ethnic cleansing was carried out in the Balkans, resulting in the destruction of the formerly socialist republic and produced the civil wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992–95, resulted in mass population displacements and segregation that radically altered what was once a highly diverse and intermixed ethnic makeup of the region. These conflicts were largely about creating a new political framework of states, each of which would be ethnically and politically homogeneous. Serbians, Croatians and Bosnians insisted they were ethnically distinct although many communities had a long history of intermarriage. Presently Slovenia (89% Slovene), Croatia (90,4% Croat)  and Serbia (83% Serb) could be classified as nation states per se, whereas Macedonia (66% Macedonian), Montenegro (42% Montenegrin) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (47% Bosniak) are multinational states.

Belgium is a classic example of a state that is not a nation state. The state was formed by secession from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830, whose neutrality and integrity was protected by the Treaty of London 1839; thus it served as a buffer state after the Napoleonitic Wars between the European powers France, Prussia (after 1871 the German Empire) and the United Kingdom  until World War I, when its neutrality was breached by the Germans. Currently, Belgium is divided between the Flemings in the north and the French-speaking or the German-speaking population in the south. The Flemish population in the north speaks Dutch, the Walloon population in the south speaks French and/or German. The Brussels population speaks French and/or Dutch.

The Flemish identity is also cultural, and there is a strong separatist movement espoused by the political parties, the right-wing Vlaams Belang and the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie. The Francophone Walloon identity of Belgium is linguistically distinct and regionalist. There is also unitary Belgian nationalism, several versions of a Greater Netherlands ideal, and a German-speaking community of Belgium annexed from Germany in 1920, and re-annexed by Germany in 1940–1944. However these ideologies are all very marginal and politically insignificant during elections.

China covers a large geographic area and uses the concept of "Zhonghua minzu" or Chinese nationality, in the sense of ethnic groups, but it also officially recognizes the majority Han ethnic group which accounts for over 90% of the population, and no fewer than 55 ethnic national minorities.

According to Philip G. Roeder, Moldova is an example of a Soviet era "segment-state" (Moldavian SSR), where the "nation-state project of the segment-state trumped the nation-state project of prior statehood. In Moldova, despite strong agitation from university faculty and students for reunification with Romania, the nation-state project forged within the Moldavian SSR trumped the project for a return to the interwar nation-state project of Greater Romania."  See Controversy over linguistic and ethnic identity in Moldova for further details.

Exceptional cases 

United Kingdom 

The United Kingdom is an unusual example of a nation state, due to its claimed "countries within a country" status. The United Kingdom, which is formed by the union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is a unitary state formed initially by the merger of two independent kingdoms, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, but the Treaty of Union (1707) that set out the agreed terms has ensured the continuation of distinct features of each state, including separate legal systems and separate national churches.

In 2003, the British Government described the United Kingdom as "countries within a country".  While the Office for National Statistics and others describe the United Kingdom as a "nation state",   others, including a then Prime Minister, describe it as a "multinational state",    and the term Home Nations is used to describe the four national teams that represent the four nations of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales). 

Kingdom of the Netherlands 

A similar unusual example is the Kingdom of the Netherlands. As of 10 October 2010, the Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of four countries: 
* Netherlands proper
* Aruba
* Curaçao
* Sint Maarten

Each is expressly designated as a land in Dutch law by the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  Unlike the German Länder and the Austrian Bundesländer, landen is consistently translated as "countries" by the Dutch government. 

Israel 

Israel was founded as a Jewish state in 1948. Its "Basic Laws" describe it as both a Jewish and a democratic state. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 75.7% of Israel's population is Jewish.  Arabs, who make up 20.4% of the population, are the largest ethnic minority in Israel. Israel also has very small communities of Armenians, Circassians, Assyrians, Samaritans, and persons of some Jewish heritage. There are also some non-Jewish spouses of Israeli Jews. However, these communities are very small, and usually number only in the hundreds or thousands.

Pakistan 

Pakistan, even being an ethnically diverse country and officially a federation, is regarded as a nation state  due to its ideological basis on which it was given independence from British India as a separate nation rather than as part of a unified India. Different ethnic groups in Pakistan are strongly bonded by their common Muslim identity, common cultural and social values, common historical heritage, a national Lingua franca (Urdu) and joint political, strategic and economic interests. 

Minorities 

The most obvious deviation from the ideal of 'one nation, one state', is the presence of minorities, especially ethnic minorities, which are clearly not members of the majority nation. An ethnic nationalist definition of a nation is necessarily exclusive: ethnic nations typically do not have open membership. In most cases, there is a clear idea that surrounding nations are different, and that includes members of those nations who live on the 'wrong side' of the border. Historical examples of groups, who have been specifically singled out as outsiders, are the Roma and Jews in Europe.

Negative responses to minorities within the nation state have ranged from cultural assimilation enforced by the state, to expulsion, persecution, violence, and extermination. The assimilation policies are usually enforced by the state, but violence against minorities is not always state initiated: it can occur in the form of mob violence such as lynching or pogroms. Nation states are responsible for some of the worst historical examples of violence against minorities: minorities not considered part of the nation.

However, many nation states accept specific minorities as being part of the nation, and the term national minority is often used in this sense. The Sorbs in Germany are an example: for centuries they have lived in German-speaking states, surrounded by a much larger ethnic German population, and they have no other historical territory. They are now generally considered to be part of the German nation and are accepted as such by the Federal Republic of Germany, which constitutionally guarantees their cultural rights. Of the thousands of ethnic and cultural minorities in nation states across the world, only a few have this level of acceptance and protection.

Multiculturalism is an official policy in many states, establishing the ideal of peaceful existence among multiple ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups. Many nations have laws protecting minority rights.

When national boundaries that do not match ethnic boundaries are drawn, such as in the Balkans and Central Asia, ethnic tension, massacres and even genocide, sometimes has occurred historically (see Bosnian genocide and 2010 ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan).

Irredentism 

 

Ideally, the border of a nation state extends far enough to include all the members of the nation, and all of the national homeland. Again, in practice some of them always live on the 'wrong side' of the border. Part of the national homeland may be there too, and it may be governed by the 'wrong' nation. The response to the non-inclusion of territory and population may take the form of irredentism: demands to annex unredeemed territory and incorporate it into the nation state.

Irredentist claims are usually based on the fact that an identifiable part of the national group lives across the border. However, they can include claims to territory where no members of that nation live at present, because they lived there in the past, the national language is spoken in that region, the national culture has influenced it, geographical unity with the existing territory, or a wide variety of other reasons. Past grievances are usually involved and can cause revanchism.

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish irredentism from pan-nationalism, since both claim that all members of an ethnic and cultural nation belong in one specific state. Pan-nationalism is less likely to specify the nation ethnically. For instance, variants of Pan-Germanism have different ideas about what constituted Greater Germany, including the confusing term Grossdeutschland, which, in fact, implied the inclusion of huge Slavic minorities from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Typically, irredentist demands are at first made by members of non-state nationalist movements. When they are adopted by a state, they typically result in tensions, and actual attempts at annexation are always considered a casus belli, a cause for war. In many cases, such claims result in long-term hostile relations between neighbouring states. Irredentist movements typically circulate maps of the claimed national territory, the greater nation state. That territory, which is often much larger than the existing state, plays a central role in their propaganda.

Irredentism should not be confused with claims to overseas colonies, which are not generally considered part of the national homeland. Some French overseas colonies would be an exception: French rule in Algeria unsuccessfully treated the colony as a département of France.

Future 

It has been speculated by both proponents of globalization and various science fiction writers that the concept of a nation state may disappear with the ever-increasingly interconnected nature of the world.  Such ideas are sometimes expressed around concepts of a world government. Another possibility is a societal collapse and move into communal anarchy or zero world government, in which nation states no longer exist and government is done on the local level based on a global ethic of human rights.

This falls into line with the concept of internationalism, which states that sovereignty is an outdated concept and a barrier to achieving peace and harmony in the world, thus also stating that nation states are also a similar outdated concept.

Globalization especially has helped to bring about the discussion about the disappearance of nation states, as global trade and the rise of the concepts of a 'global citizen' and a common identity have helped to reduce differences and 'distances' between individual nation states, especially with regards to the internet. 

Clash of civilizations 

The theory of the clash of civilizations lies in direct contrast to cosmopolitan theories about an ever more-connected world that no longer requires nation states. According to political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post–Cold War world.

The theory was originally formulated in a 1992 lecture  at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?",  in response to Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

Huntington began his thinking by surveying the diverse theories about the nature of global politics in the post–Cold War period. Some theorists and writers argued that human rights, liberal democracy and capitalist free market economics had become the only remaining ideological alternative for nations in the post–Cold War world. Specifically, Francis Fukuyama, in The End of History and the Last Man, argued that the world had reached a Hegelian "end of history".

Huntington believed that while the age of ideology had ended, the world had reverted only to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his thesis, he argued that the primary axis of conflict in the future will be along cultural and religious lines.

As an extension, he posits that the concept of different civilizations, as the highest rank of cultural identity, will become increasingly useful in analyzing the potential for conflict.

In the 1993 Foreign Affairs article, Huntington writes:

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.

Sandra Joireman suggests that Huntington may be characterised as a neo-primordialist, as, while he sees people as having strong ties to their ethnicity, he does not believe that these ties have always existed. 

Historiography 

Historians often look to the past to find the origins of a particular nation state. Indeed, they often put so much emphasis on the importance of the nation state in modern times, that they distort the history of earlier periods in order to emphasize the question of origins. Lansing and English argue that much of the medieval history of Europe was structured to follow the historical winners—especially the nation states that emerged around Paris and London. Important developments that did not directly lead to a nation state get neglected, they argue:
one effect of this approach has been to privilege historical winners, aspects of medieval Europe that became important in later centuries, above all the nation state.... Arguably the liveliest cultural innovation in the 13th century was Mediterranean, centered on Frederick II's polyglot court and administration in Palermo....Sicily and the Italian South in later centuries suffered a long slide into overtaxed poverty and marginality. Textbook narratives therefore focus not on medieval Palermo, with its Muslim and Jewish bureaucracies and Arabic-speaking monarch, but on the historical winners, Paris and London. A republic (from ) is a sovereign state or country  which is organized with a form of government in which power resides in elected individuals representing the citizen body   and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. In modern times, the definition of a republic is commonly limited to a government which excludes a monarch.  Currently, 147 of the world's 206 sovereign states use the word "republic" as part of their official names; not all of these are republics in the sense of having elected governments, nor do all nations with elected governments use the word "republic" in their names.

Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology and composition. In the classical and medieval period of Europe, many states were fashioned on the Roman Republic, which referred to the governance of the city of Rome, between it having kings and emperors. The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition, today referred to as "civic humanism", is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust and Tacitus. However, Greek-influenced Roman authors, such as Polybius  and Cicero, sometimes also used the term as a translation for the Greek politeia which could mean regime generally, but could also be applied to certain specific types of regime which did not exactly correspond to that of the Roman Republic. Republics were not equated with classical democracies such as Athens, but had a democratic aspect.

Republics became more common in the Western world starting in the late 18th century, eventually displacing absolute monarchy as the most common form of government in Europe. In modern republics the executive is legitimized both by a constitution and by popular suffrage. Montesquieu included in his work "The Spirit of the Laws" both democracies, where all the people have a share in rule, and aristocracies or oligarchies, where only some of the people rule, as republican forms of government. 

Most often a republic is a single sovereign state, but there are also sub-sovereign state entities that are referred to as republics, or which have governments that are described as 'republican' in nature. For instance, Article IV of the United States Constitution "guarantee[s] to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government".  In contrast, the Soviet Union was constitutionally described as a "federal multinational state", composed of 15 republics, two of which – Ukraine and Belarus – had their own seats at the United Nations.

Etymology 

The term originates as the Latin translation of Greek word politeia. Cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia as res publica and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic (or similar terms in various western European languages).

The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and is therefore not always a word for a specific type of regime as the modern word republic is. (One of Plato's major works on political science was titled Politeia and in English it is thus known as The Republic. However, apart from the title, in modern translations of The Republic, alternative translations of politeia are also used. ) However, in Book III of his Politics (1279a), Aristotle was apparently the first classical writer to state that the term politeia can be used to refer more specifically to one type of politeia: "When the citizens at large govern for the public good, it is called by the name common to all governments (to koinon onoma pasōn tōn politeiōn), government (politeia)". And also amongst classical Latin, the term "republic" can be used in a general way to refer to any regime, or in a specific way to refer to governments which work for the public good.

In medieval Northern Italy, a number of city states had commune or signoria based governments. In the late Middle Ages, writers, such as Giovanni Villani, began writing about the nature of these states and the differences from other types of regime. They used terms such as libertas populi, a free people, to describe the states. The terminology changed in the 15th century as the renewed interest in the writings of Ancient Rome caused writers to prefer using classical terminology. To describe non-monarchical states writers, most importantly Leonardo Bruni, adopted the Latin phrase res publica. 

While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term res publica has a set of interrelated meanings in the original Latin. The term can quite literally be translated as "public matter"."Republic"j, New Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Ed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz. Vol. 5. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005. p. 2099 It was most often used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, even during the period of the Roman Empire. 

In subsequent centuries, the English word commonwealth came to be used as a translation of res publica, and its use in English was comparable to how the Romans used the term res publica.Haakonssen, Knud. "Republicanism." A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy. Robert E. Goodin and Philip Pettit. eds. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995. Notably, during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the word commonwealth was the most common term to call the new monarchless state, but the word republic was also in common use. p. xxiii.

Presently, the term "republic"  commonly means a system of government which derives its power from the people rather than from another basis, such as heredity or divine right.

History 

While the philosophical terminology developed in classical Greece and Rome, as already noted by Aristotle there was already a long history of city states with a wide variety of constitutions, not only in Greece but also in the Middle East. After the classical period, during the Middle Ages, many free cities developed again, such as Venice.

Classical republics 

The modern type of "republic" itself is different from any type of state found in the classical world.   Nevertheless, there are a number of states of the classical era that are today still called republics. This includes ancient Athens, Sparta and the Roman Republic. While the structure and governance of these states was very different from that of any modern republic, there is debate about the extent to which classical, medieval, and modern republics form a historical continuum. J. G. A. Pocock has argued that a distinct republican tradition stretches from the classical world to the present.Pocock, J.G.A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1975; new ed. 2003) Other scholars disagree. Paul Rahe, for instance, argues that the classical republics had a form of government with few links to those in any modern country.Paul A. Rahe, Republics, Ancient and Modern, three volumes, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1994.

The political philosophy of the classical republics have in any case had an influence on republican thought throughout the subsequent centuries. Philosophers and politicians advocating for republics, such as Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Adams, and Madison, relied heavily on classical Greek and Roman sources which described various types of regimes.

Aristotle's Politics discusses various forms of government. One form Aristotle named politeia, which consisted of a mixture of the other forms. He argued that this was one of the ideal forms of government. Polybius expanded on many of these ideas, again focusing on the idea of mixed government. The most important Roman work in this tradition is Cicero's De re publica.

Over time, the classical republics were either conquered by empires or became ones themselves. Most of the Greek republics were annexed to the Macedonian Empire of Alexander. The Roman Republic expanded dramatically conquering the other states of the Mediterranean that could be considered republics, such as Carthage. The Roman Republic itself then became the Roman Empire.

Other ancient republics 

The term "republic" is not commonly used to refer to pre-classical city states, especially if outside Europe and the area which was under Graeco-Roman influence. However some early states outside Europe had governments that are sometimes today considered similar to republics.

In the ancient Near East, a number of cities of the Eastern Mediterranean achieved collective rule. Arwad has been cited as one of the earliest known examples of a republic, in which the people, rather than a monarch, are described as sovereign.  The Israelite confederation of the era before the United Monarchy has also been considered a type of republic.  In Africa the Axum Empire was organized as a confederation ruled similarly to a royal republic.  Similarly the Igbo nation of what is now Nigeria. 

The ancient Indian subcontinent had a number of early republics known as Mahajanapadas.  Mahajanapadas consisted of sixteen oligarchic republics that existed during the sixth centuries BCE to fourth centuries BCE.  Some Indian scholars, such as K.P. Jayaswal, have argued that a number of states in ancient India had republican forms of government.    There are no surviving constitutions or works of political philosophy from this period in Indian history, but surviving religious texts do refer to a number of states having Gaṇa sangha, or council-based, as opposed to monarchical, governments.

Icelandic Commonwealth 

The Icelandic Commonwealth was established in 930 AD by refugees from Norway who had fled the unification of that country under King Harald Fairhair. The Commonwealth consisted of a number of clans run by chieftains, and the Althing was a combination of parliament and supreme court where disputes appealed from lower courts were settled, laws were decided, and decisions of national importance were taken. One such example was the Christianisation of Iceland in 1000, where the Althing decreed, in order to prevent an invasion, that all Icelanders must be baptized, and forbade celebration of pagan rituals. Contrary to most states, the Icelandic Commonwealth had no official leader.

In the early 13th century, the Age of the Sturlungs, the Commonwealth began to suffer from long conflicts between warring clans. This, combined with pressure from the Norwegian king Haakon IV for the Icelanders to re-join the Norwegian "family", led the Icelandic chieftains to accept Haakon IV as king by the signing of the Gamli sáttmáli ("Old Covenant") in 1262. This effectively brought the Commonwealth to an end. The Althing, however, is still Iceland's parliament, almost 800 years later. 

Mercantile republics 

In Europe new republics appeared in the late Middle Ages when a number of small states embraced republican systems of government. These were generally small, but wealthy, trading states, like the Italian city-states and the Hanseatic League, in which the merchant class had risen to prominence.  Knud Haakonssen has noted that, by the Renaissance, Europe was divided with those states controlled by a landed elite being monarchies and those controlled by a commercial elite being republics.

Across Europe a wealthy merchant class developed in the important trading cities. Despite their wealth they had little power in the feudal system dominated by the rural land owners, and across Europe began to advocate for their own privileges and powers. The more centralized states, such as France and England, granted limited city charters.

In the more loosely governed Holy Roman Empire, 51 of the largest towns became free imperial cities. While still under the dominion of the Holy Roman Emperor most power was held locally and many adopted republican forms of government.  The same rights to imperial immediacy were secured by the major trading cities of Switzerland. The towns and villages of alpine Switzerland had, courtesy of geography, also been largely excluded from central control. Unlike Italy and Germany, much of the rural area was thus not controlled by feudal barons, but by independent farmers who also used communal forms of government. When the Habsburgs tried to reassert control over the region both rural farmers and town merchants joined the rebellion. The Swiss were victorious, and the Swiss Confederacy was proclaimed, and Switzerland has retained a republican form of government to the present.

Italy was the most densely populated area of Europe, and also one with the weakest central government. Many of the towns thus gained considerable independence and adopted commune forms of government. Completely free of feudal control, the Italian city-states expanded, gaining control of the rural hinterland. The two most powerful were the Republic of Venice and its rival the Republic of Genoa. Each were large trading ports, and further expanded by using naval power to control large parts of the Mediterranean. It was in Italy that an ideology advocating for republics first developed. Writers such as Bartholomew of Lucca, Brunetto Latini, Marsilius of Padua, and Leonardo Bruni saw the medieval city-states as heirs to the legacy of Greece and Rome.

Two Russian cities with powerful merchant class—Novgorod and Pskov—also adopted republican forms of government in 12th and 13th centuries, respectively, which ended when the republics were conquered by Muscovy/Russia at the end 15th – beginning of 16th century. 

The dominant form of government for these early republics was control by a limited council of elite patricians. In those areas that held elections, property qualifications or guild membership limited both who could vote and who could run. In many states no direct elections were held and council members were hereditary or appointed by the existing council. This left the great majority of the population without political power, and riots and revolts by the lower classes were common. The late Middle Ages saw more than 200 such risings in the towns of the Holy Roman Empire.  Similar revolts occurred in Italy, notably the Ciompi Revolt in Florence.

Mercantile republics outside of Europe 

Following the collapse of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and establishment of the Turkish  Anatolian Beyliks, the Ahiler merchant fraternities established a state centered on Ankara that is sometimes compared to the Italian mercantile republics.

Calvinist republics 

While the classical writers had been the primary ideological source for the republics of Italy, in Northern Europe, the Protestant Reformation would be used as justification for establishing new republics.  Most important was Calvinist theology, which developed in the Swiss Confederacy, one of the largest and most powerful of the medieval republics. John Calvin did not call for the abolition of monarchy, but he advanced the doctrine that the faithful had the right to overthrow irreligious monarchs.  Advocacy for republics appeared in the writings of the Huguenots during the French Wars of Religion. 

Calvinism played an important role in the republican revolts in England and the Netherlands. Like the city-states of Italy and the Hanseatic League, both were important trading centres, with a large merchant class prospering from the trade with the New World. Large parts of the population of both areas also embraced Calvinism. During the Dutch Revolt (beginning in 1566), the Dutch Republic emerged from rejection of Spanish Habsburg rule. However, the country did not adopt the republican form of government immediately: in the formal declaration of independence (Act of Abjuration, 1581), the throne of king Philip was only declared vacant, and the Dutch magistrates asked the Duke of Anjou, queen Elizabeth of England and prince William of Orange, one after another, to replace Philip. It took until 1588 before the Estates (the Staten, the representative assembly at the time) decided to vest the sovereignty of the country in themselves.

In 1641 the English Civil War began. Spearheaded by the Puritans and funded by the merchants of London, the revolt was a success, and King Charles I was executed. In England James Harrington, Algernon Sidney, and John Milton became some of the first writers to argue for rejecting monarchy and embracing a republican form of government. The English Commonwealth was short lived, and the monarchy soon restored. The Dutch Republic continued in name until 1795, but by the mid-18th century the stadtholder had become a de facto monarch. Calvinists were also some of the earliest settlers of the British and Dutch colonies of North America.

Liberal republics 

Along with these initial republican revolts, early modern Europe also saw a great increase in monarchial power. The era of absolute monarchy replaced the limited and decentralized monarchies that had existed in most of the Middle Ages. It also saw a reaction against the total control of the monarch as a series of writers created the ideology known as liberalism.

Most of these Enlightenment thinkers were far more interested in ideas of constitutional monarchy than in republics. The Cromwell regime had discredited republicanism, and most thinkers felt that republics ended in either anarchy or tyranny.  Thus philosophers like Voltaire opposed absolutism while at the same time being strongly pro-monarchy.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Montesquieu praised republics, and looked on the city-states of Greece as a model. However, both also felt that a nation-state like France, with 20 million people, would be impossible to govern as a republic. Rousseau admired the republican experiment in Corsica (1755-1769) and described his ideal political structure of small self-governing communes. Montesquieu felt that a city-state should ideally be a republic, but maintained that a limited monarchy was better suited to a large nation.

The American Revolution began as a rejection only of the authority of the British Parliament over the colonies, not of the monarchy. The failure of the British monarch to protect the colonies from what they considered the infringement of their rights to representative government, the monarch's branding of those requesting redress as traitors, and his support for sending combat troops to demonstrate authority resulted in widespread perception of the British monarchy as tyrannical. With the United States Declaration of Independence the leaders of the revolt firmly rejected the monarchy and embraced republicanism. The leaders of the revolution were well versed in the writings of the French liberal thinkers, and also in history of the classical republics. John Adams had notably written a book on republics throughout history. In addition, the widely distributed and popularly read-aloud tract Common Sense, by Thomas Paine,  succinctly and eloquently laid out the case for republican ideals and independence to the larger public. The Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1789, created a relatively strong federal republic to replace the relatively weak confederation under the first attempt at a national government with the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union ratified in 1783.  The first ten amendments to the Constitution, called the United States Bill of Rights, guaranteed certain natural rights fundamental to republican ideals that justified the Revolution.

The French Revolution was also not republican at its outset. Only after the Flight to Varennes removed most of the remaining sympathy for the king was a republic declared and Louis XVI sent to the guillotine. The stunning success of France in the French Revolutionary Wars saw republics spread by force of arms across much of Europe as a series of client republics were set up across the continent. The rise of Napoleon saw the end of the French First Republic and her Sister Republics, each replaced by 'popular monarchies'. Throughout the Napoleonic period, the victors extinguished many of the oldest republics on the continent, including the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, and the Dutch Republic. They were eventually transformed into monarchies or absorbed into neighbouring monarchies.

Outside Europe another group of republics was created as the Napoleonic Wars allowed the states of Latin America to gain their independence. Liberal ideology had only a limited impact on these new republics. The main impetus was the local European descended Creole population in conflict with the Peninsulares - governors sent from overseas. The majority of the population in most of Latin America was of either African or Amerindian descent, and the Creole elite had little interest in giving these groups power and broad-based popular sovereignty. Simón Bolívar, both the main instigator of the revolts and one of its most important theorists, was sympathetic to liberal ideals but felt that Latin America lacked the social cohesion for such a system to function and advocated autocracy as necessary.

In Mexico this autocracy briefly took the form of a monarchy in the First Mexican Empire. Due to the Peninsular War, the Portuguese court was relocated to Brazil in 1808. Brazil gained independence as a monarchy on September 7, 1822, and the Empire of Brazil lasted until 1889. In the other states various forms of autocratic republic existed until most were liberalized at the end of the 20th century. 

The French Second Republic was created in 1848, but abolished by Napoleon III who proclaimed himself Emperor in 1852. The French Third Republic was established in 1870, when a civil revolutionary committee refused to accept Napoleon III's surrender during the Franco-Prussian War. Spain briefly became the First Spanish Republic in 1873–4, but the monarchy was soon restored. By the start of the 20th century France, Switzerland and San Marino remained the only republics in Europe. This changed when, after the 1908 Lisbon Regicide, the 5 October 1910 revolution established the Portuguese Republic. This would encourage new republics during and in the aftermath of World War I, when several of the largest European empires collapsed: the German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russian Empire, and Ottoman Empire were all replaced by republics. New states gained independence during this turmoil, and many of these, such as Ireland, Poland, Finland and Czechoslovakia, chose republican forms of government. Following Greece's defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22), the monarchy was briefly replaced by the Second Hellenic Republic (1924–1935). In 1931, the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939) resulted in the Spanish Civil War that would be the prelude of World War II.

Republican ideas were spreading, especially in Asia. The United States began to have considerable influence in East Asia in the later part of the 19th century, with Protestant missionaries playing a central role. The liberal and republican writers of the west also exerted influence. These combined with native Confucian inspired political philosophy that had long argued that the populace had the right to reject unjust government that had lost the Mandate of Heaven.

Two short-lived republics were proclaimed in East Asia, the Republic of Formosa and the First Philippine Republic. China had seen considerable anti-Qing sentiment, and a number of protest movements developed calling for constitutional monarchy. The most important leader of these efforts was Sun Yat-sen, whose Three Principles of the People combined American, European, and Chinese ideas. The Republic of China was proclaimed on January 1, 1912.

Decolonization 

In the years following World War II, most of the remaining European colonies gained their independence, and most became republics. The two largest colonial powers were France and the United Kingdom. Republican France encouraged the establishment of republics in its former colonies. the United Kingdom attempted to follow the model it had for its earlier settler colonies of creating independent Commonwealth realms still linked under the same monarchy. While most of the settler colonies and the smaller states of the Caribbean retained this system, it was rejected by the newly independent countries in Africa and Asia, which revised their constitutions and became republics.

Britain followed a different model in the Middle East; it installed local monarchies in several colonies and mandates including Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and Libya. In subsequent decades revolutions and coups overthrew a number of monarchs and installed republics. Several monarchies remain, and the Middle East is the only part of the world where several large states are ruled by monarchs with almost complete political control. 

Socialist republics 

In the wake of the First World War, the Russian monarchy fell during the Russian Revolution. The Russian Provisional Government was established in its place on the lines of a liberal republic, but this was overthrown by the Bolsheviks who went on to establish the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This was the first republic established under Marxist-Leninist ideology. Communism was wholly opposed to monarchy, and became an important element of many republican movements during the 20th century. The Russian Revolution spread into Mongolia, and overthrew its theocratic monarchy in 1924. In the aftermath of the Second World War the communists gradually gained control of Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Albania, ensuring that the states were reestablished as socialist republics rather than monarchies.

Communism also intermingled with other ideologies. It was embraced by many national liberation movements during decolonization. In Vietnam, communist republicans pushed aside the Nguyễn Dynasty, and monarchies in neighbouring Laos and Cambodia were overthrown by communist movements in the 1970s. Arab socialism contributed to a series of revolts and coups that saw the monarchies of Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen ousted. In Africa Marxist-Leninism and African socialism led to the end of monarchy and the proclamation of republics in states such as Burundi and Ethiopia.

Islamic republics 

Islamic political philosophy has a long history of opposition to absolute monarchy, notably in the work of Al-Farabi. Sharia law took precedence over the will of the ruler, and electing rulers by means of the Shura was an important doctrine. While the early caliphate maintained the principles of an elected ruler, later states became hereditary or military dictatorships though many maintained some pretense of a consultative shura.

None of these states are typically referred to as republics. The current usage of republic in Muslim countries is borrowed from the western meaning, adopted into the language in the late 19th century.  The 20th century saw republicanism become an important idea in much of the Middle East, as monarchies were removed in many states of the region. Iraq became a secular state. Some nations, such as Indonesia and Azerbaijan, began as secular. In Iran, the 1979 revolution overthrew the monarchy and created an Islamic republic based on the ideas of Islamic democracy.

Head of state 

Structure 

With no monarch, most modern republics use the title president for the head of state. Originally used to refer to the presiding officer of a committee or governing body in Great Britain the usage was also applied to political leaders, including the leaders of some of the Thirteen Colonies (originally Virginia in 1608); in full, the "President of the Council."  The first republic to adopt the title was the United States of America. Keeping its usage as the head of a committee the President of the Continental Congress was the leader of the original congress. When the new constitution was written the title of President of the United States was conferred on the head of the new executive branch.

If the head of state of a republic is also the head of government, this is called a presidential system. There are a number of forms of presidential government. A full-presidential system has a president with substantial authority and a central political role.

In other states the legislature is dominant and the presidential role is almost purely ceremonial and apolitical, such as in Germany and India. These states are parliamentary republics and operate similarly to constitutional monarchies with parliamentary systems where the power of the monarch is also greatly circumscribed. In parliamentary systems the head of government, most often titled prime minister, exercises the most real political power. Semi-presidential systems have a president as an active head of state, but also have a head of government with important powers.

The rules for appointing the president and the leader of the government, in some republics permit the appointment of a president and a prime minister who have opposing political convictions: in France, when the members of the ruling cabinet and the president come from opposing political factions, this situation is called cohabitation.

In some countries, like Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina and San Marino, the head of state is not a single person but a committee (council) of several persons holding that office. The Roman Republic had two consuls, elected for a one year-term by the comitia centuriata, consisting of all adult, freeborn males who could prove citizenship.

Elections 

In liberal democracies presidents are elected, either directly by the people or indirectly by a parliament or council. Typically in presidential and semi-presidential systems the president is directly elected by the people, or is indirectly elected as done in the United States. In that country the president is officially elected by an electoral college, chosen by the States, all of which do so by direct election of the electors. The indirect election of the president through the electoral college conforms to the concept of republic as one with a system of indirect election. In the opinion of some, direct election confers legitimacy upon the president and gives the office much of its political power.  However, this concept of legitimacy differs from that expressed in the United States Constitution which established the legitimacy of the United States president as resulting from the signing of the Constitution by nine states.  The idea that direct election is required for legitimacy also contradicts the spirit of the Great Compromise, whose actual result was manifest in the clause  that provides voters in smaller states with slightly more representation in presidential selection than those in large states.

In states with a parliamentary system the president is usually elected by the parliament. This indirect election subordinates the president to the parliament, and also gives the president limited legitimacy and turns most presidential powers into reserve powers that can only be exercised under rare circumstance. There are exceptions where elected presidents have only ceremonial powers, such as in Ireland.

Ambiguities 

The distinction between a republic and a monarchy is not always clear. The constitutional monarchies of the former British Empire and Western Europe today have almost all real political power vested in the elected representatives, with the monarchs only holding either theoretical powers, no powers or rarely used reserve powers. Real legitimacy for political decisions comes from the elected representatives and is derived from the will of the people. While hereditary monarchies remain in place, political power is derived from the people as in a republic. These states are thus sometimes referred to as crowned republics. 

Terms such as liberal republic are also used to describe all of the modern liberal democracies. 

There are also self-proclaimed republics that act similarly to monarchies with absolute power vested in the leader and passed down from father to son. North Korea and Syria are two notable examples where a son has inherited political control. Neither of these states are officially monarchies. There is no constitutional requirement that power be passed down within one family, but it has occurred in practice.

There are also elective monarchies where ultimate power is vested in a monarch, but the monarch is chosen by some manner of election. A current example of such a state is Malaysia where the Yang di-Pertuan Agong is elected every five years by the Conference of Rulers composed of the nine hereditary rulers of the Malay states, and the Vatican City-State, where the pope is selected by cardinal-electors, currently all cardinals under a specific age. While rare today, elective monarchs were common in the past. The Holy Roman Empire is an important example, where each new emperor was chosen by a group of electors. Islamic states also rarely employed primogeniture, instead relying on various forms of election to choose a monarch's successor.

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had an elective monarchy, with a wide suffrage of some 500,000 nobles. The system, known as the Golden Liberty, had developed as a method for powerful landowners to control the crown. The proponents of this system looked to classical examples, and the writings of the Italian Renaissance, and called their elective monarchy a rzeczpospolita, based on res publica.

Sub-national republics 

In general being a republic also implies sovereignty as for the state to be ruled by the people it cannot be controlled by a foreign power. There are important exceptions to this, for example, republics in the Soviet Union were member states which had to meet three criteria to be named republics:

# be on the periphery of the Soviet Union so as to be able to take advantage of their theoretical right to secede;
# be economically strong enough to be self-sufficient upon secession; and
# be named after at least one million people of the ethnic group which should make up the majority population of said republic.

It is sometimes argued that the former Soviet Union was also a supra-national republic, based on the claim that the member states were different nations.

Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (and earlier names) was a federal entity composed of six republics (Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia). Each republic had its parliament, government, institute of citizenship, constitution, etc... but certain functions were delegated to the federation (army, monetary matters). Each republic also had a right of self-determination according to the conclusions of the second session of the AVNOJ and according to the federal constitution.

States of the United States are required, like the federal government, to be republican in form, with final authority resting with the people. This was required because the states were intended to create and enforce most domestic laws, with the exception of areas delegated to the federal government and prohibited to the states. The founding fathers of the country intended most domestic laws to be handled by the states. Requiring the states to be a republic in form was seen as protecting the citizens' rights and preventing a state from becoming a dictatorship or monarchy, and reflected unwillingness on the part of the original 13 states (all independent republics) to unite with other states that were not republics. Additionally, this requirement ensured that only other republics could join the union.

In the example of the United States, the original 13 British colonies became independent states after the American Revolution, each having a republican form of government. These independent states initially formed a loose confederation called the United States and then later formed the current United States by ratifying the current U.S. Constitution, creating a union of sovereign states with the union or federal government also being a republic. Any state joining the union later was also required to be a republic.

Other meanings 

Political philosophy 

The term republic originated from the writers of the Renaissance as a descriptive term for states that were not monarchies. These writers, such as Machiavelli, also wrote important prescriptive works describing how such governments should function. These ideas of how a government and society should be structured is the basis for an ideology known as classical republicanism or civic humanism. This ideology is based on the Roman Republic and the city states of Ancient Greece and focuses on ideals such as civic virtue, rule of law, and mixed government. 

This understanding of a republic as a distinct form of government from a liberal democracy is one of the main theses of the Cambridge School of historical analysis.  This grew out of the work of J. G. A. Pocock who in 1975 argued that a series of scholars had expressed a consistent set of republican ideals. These writers included Machiavelli, Milton, Montesquieu, and the founders of the United States of America.

Pocock argued that this was an ideology with a history and principles distinct from liberalism.  These ideas were embraced by a number of different writers, including Quentin Skinner, Philip Pettit  and Cass Sunstein. These subsequent writers have further explored the history of the idea, and also outlined how a modern republic should function.

United States 

A distinct set of definitions for the word republic evolved in the United States. In common parlance, a republic is a state that does not practice direct democracy but rather has a government indirectly controlled by the people. This understanding of the term was originally developed by James Madison, and notably employed in Federalist Paper No. 10. This meaning was widely adopted early in the history of the United States, including in Noah Webster's dictionary of 1828. It was a novel meaning to the term; representative democracy was not an idea mentioned by Machiavelli and did not exist in the classical republics.   Also, there is evidence that contemporaries of Madison considered the meaning of the word to reflect the definition found elsewhere, as is the case with a quotation of Benjamin Franklin taken from the notes of James McHenry where the question is put forth, "a Republic or a Monarchy?" 

The term republic does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, but does appear in Article IV of the Constitution which "guarantee[s] to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government." What exactly the writers of the constitution felt this should mean is uncertain. The Supreme Court, in Luther v. Borden (1849), declared that the definition of republic was a "political question" in which it would not intervene. In two later cases, it did establish a basic definition. In United States v. Cruikshank (1875), the court ruled that the "equal rights of citizens" were inherent to the idea of a republic.

However, the term republic is not synonymous with the republican form. The republican form is defined as one in which the powers of sovereignty are vested in the people and are exercised by the people, either directly, or through representatives chosen by the people, to whom those powers are specially delegated. In re Duncan, 139 U.S. 449, 11 S.Ct. 573, 35 L.Ed. 219; Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 22 L.Ed. 627.
 

Beyond these basic definitions the word republic has a number of other connotations. W. Paul Adams observes that republic is most often used in the United States as a synonym for state or government, but with more positive connotations than either of those terms.   Republicanism is often referred to as the founding ideology of the United States.  Traditionally scholars believed this American republicanism was a derivation of the classical liberal ideologies of John Locke and others developed in Europe.

A political philosophy of republicanism that formed during the Renaissance period, and initiated by Machiavelli, was thought to have had little impact on the founders of the United States.  In the 1960s and 1970s a revisionist school  led by the likes of Bernard Bailyn began to argue that republicanism was just as or even more important than liberalism in the creation of the United States.  This issue is still much disputed and scholars like Isaac Kramnick completely reject this view. An empire is defined as "an aggregate of nations or people ruled over by an emperor or other powerful sovereign or government, usually a territory of greater extent than a kingdom, as the former British Empire, French Empire, Russian Empire, Byzantine Empire or Roman Empire."  An empire can be made solely of contiguous territories such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or of territories far remote from the homeland, such as a colonial empire.

Aside from the more formal usage, the term "empire" can also be used to refer to a large-scale business enterprise (e.g. a transnational corporation), a political organisation controlled by a single individual (a political boss) or a group (political bosses).  The term "empire" is associated with other words such as imperialism, colonialism, and globalization. Empire is often used to describe a displeasure to overpowering situations.  The effects of imperialism exist throughout the world today.

An imperial political structure can be established and maintained in two ways: (i) as a territorial empire of direct conquest and control with force or (ii) as a coercive, hegemonic empire of indirect conquest and control with power. The former method provides greater tribute and direct political control, yet limits further expansion because it absorbs military forces to fixed garrisons. The latter method provides less tribute and indirect control, but avails military forces for further expansion.  Territorial empires (e.g., the Mongol Empire and Median Empire) tend to be contiguous areas. The term, on occasion, has been applied to maritime empires or thalassocracies, (e.g., the Athenian and British empires) with looser structures and more scattered territories. Empires are usually larger than kingdoms.

This aspiration to universality resulted in conquest by converting ‘outsiders’ or ‘inferiors’ into the colonialized religion. This association of nationality and race became complex and has had a more intense drive for expansion. 

Definition

An empire is a multi-ethnic or multinational state with political and/or military dominion of populations who are culturally and ethnically distinct from the imperial (ruling) ethnic group and its culture.  This is in contrast to a federation, which is an extensive state voluntarily composed of autonomous states and peoples. An empire is a large political party who rules over territories outside of its original borders.

Definitions of what physically and politically constitute an empire vary. It might be a state affecting imperial policies or a particular political structure. Empires are typically formed from diverse ethnic, national, cultural, and religious components.  Empire and colonialism are used to refer to relationships between powerful state or society versus a less powerful one.

Tom Nairn and Paul James define empires as polities that:
extend relations of power across territorial spaces over which they have no prior or given legal sovereignty, and where, in one or more of the domains of economics, politics, and culture, they gain some measure of extensive hegemony over those spaces for the purpose of extracting or accruing value. 

Sometimes, an empire is a semantic construction, such as when a ruler assumes the title of "emperor". That ruler's nation logically becomes an "empire", despite having no additional territory or hegemony. Examples of this form of empire are the Central African Empire, or the Korean Empire proclaimed in 1897 when Korea, far from gaining new territory, was on the verge of being annexed by the Empire of Japan, the last to use the name officially. Among the last of the empires in the 20th century were the Central African Empire, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Manchukuo, the German Empire, and Korea.

The terrestrial empire's maritime analogue is the thalassocracy, an empire composed of islands and coasts which are accessible to its terrestrial homeland, such as the Athenian-dominated Delian League.

Furthermore, empires can expand by both land and sea. Stephen Howe notes that empires by land can be characterized by expansion over terrain, “extending directly outwards from the original frontier”   while an empire by sea can be characterized by  colonial expansion and empire building “by an increasingly powerful navy”. 

Characteristics

Empires originated as different types of states, although they commonly began as powerful monarchies. Ideas about empires changed throughout century varying from approval from the public to becoming universally distasteful. Empires are built out of separate units with some kind of diversity – ethnic, national, cultural, religious – and imply at least some inequality between the rulers and the ruled. Without this inequality, the system would be seen as commonwealth.

Many empires were the result of military conquest, incorporating the vanquished states into a political union, but imperial hegemony can be established in other ways.  The Athenian Empire, the Roman Empire, and the British Empire developed at least in part under elective auspices. The Empire of Brazil declared itself an empire after separating from the Portuguese Empire in 1822. France has twice transitioned from being called the French Republic to being called the French Empire, while France remained an overseas empire.

Weaker states may seek annexation into the empire. An example is the bequest of Pergamon to the Roman Empire by Attalus III. The Unification of Germany as the empire accreted to the Prussian metropole was less a military conquest of the German states than their political divorce from the Austrian Empire. Having convinced the other states of its military prowess, and having excluded the Austrians, Prussia dictated the terms of imperial membership.

Politically, it was typical for either a monarchy or an oligarchy, rooted in the original core territory of the empire, to continue to dominate. If governmental authority was maintained by controlling water supplies, vital to colonial subjects, such régimes were called hydraulic empires.

Europeans began applying the designation of "empire" to non-European monarchies, such as the Qing Empire and the Mughal Empire, as well as the Maratha Empire, eventually leading to the looser denotations applicable to any political structure meeting the criteria of "imperium".

Some empires styled themselves as having greater size, scope, and power than the territorial, politico-military, and economic facts support. As a consequence, some monarchs assumed the title of "emperor" (or its corresponding translation, tsar, empereur, kaiser, etc.) and renamed their states as "The Empire of ...."

Empires were seen as an expanding power, administration, ideas and beliefs followed by cultural habits from place to place. Empires tend to impose their culture on the subject states to strengthen the imperial structure.  This can have notable effects that outlast the empire itself, both positive and negative.

History of imperialism

Bronze and Iron Age empires

The earliest known empire appeared in Egypt when King Narmer of the Upper Valley conquered the Lower Valley circa 3000 BC and laid the foundations for the Old Kingdom. The Akkadian Empire, established by Sargon of Akkad (24th century BC), was an early all-Mesopotamian empire. This imperial achievement was repeated by Hammurabi of Babylon in the 17th century BC. In the 15th century BC, the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, ruled by Thutmose III, was ancient Africa's major force upon incorporating Nubia and the ancient city-states of the Levant.

Circa 1500 BC in China rose the Shang Empire which was succeeded by the Chou Empire circa 1100 BC. Both surpassed in territory their contemporary Near Eastern empires. The Chou Empire dissolved in 770 BC into feudal multi-state system which lasted for five and a half centuries until the universal conquest of Qin in 221 BC.

The first empire comparable to Rome in organization was the Neo-Assyrian Empire (916–612 BC). The Median Empire was the first empire within the territory of Persia. By the 6th century BC, after having allied with the Babylonians to defeat the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Medes were able to establish their own empire, which was the largest of its day and lasted for about sixty years.

Classical period

The Axial Age (mid-First Millennium BC) witnessed unprecedented imperial expansion in the Indo-Mediterranean region and China.  The successful and extensive Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), also known as the first Persian Empire, covered Mesopotamia, Egypt, parts of Greece, Thrace, the Middle East, much of Central Asia, and Pakistan. It is considered the first great empire of Ancient  History. It was overthrown and replaced by the short-lived empire of Alexander the Great. His Empire was succeeded by three Empires ruled by the Diadochi—the Seleucid, Ptolemaic, and Macedonian, which, despite being independent, are called the "Hellenistic Empire" by virtue of their similarities in culture and administration.

Meanwhile, in the western Mediterranean the Empires of Carthage and Rome began their rise. Having decisively defeated Carthage in 202 BC, Rome defeated Macedonia in 200 BC and the Seleucids in 190/189 BC to establish all-Mediterranean Empire. The Seleucid Empire broke apart and its former eastern part was absorbed by the Parthian Empire. In 30 BC Rome annexed the Ptolemaic Egypt.

In India during the Axial Age appeared the Maurya Empire—a geographically extensive and powerful empire, ruled by the Mauryan dynasty from 321–185 BC. The empire was founded in 322 BC by Chandragupta Maurya, who rapidly expanded his power westward across central and western India, taking advantage of the disruptions of local powers following the withdrawal by Alexander the Great. By 320 BC, the Maurya Empire had fully occupied northwestern India as well as defeating and conquering the satraps left by Alexander. Under Emperor Asoka the Great, the Maurya Empire became the first Indian empire to conquer all Indian Peninsula—achievement repeated only twice, by the Gupta and Mughal Empires. In the reign of Asoka Buddhism spread to become the dominant religion in ancient India. It has been estimated that the Maurya dynasty controlled an unprecedented one-third of the world's entire economy, was home to one-third of the world's population at the time (an estimated 50 million out of 150 million humans), contained the world's largest city of the time (Pataliputra, estimated to be larger than Rome under Emperor Trajan) and according to Megasthenes, the empire wielded a military of 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, and 9,000 war elephants.

In China of the Axial Age, the era of the Warring States ended in 221 BC with the universal conquest of Qin. The King of Qin, Ying Zheng, became China's First Emperor and began the pattern of successive dynasties. Ying Zheng connected all the existing defense walls of northern China into what is known today Great Wall of China which marked the northern frontier of China. The Qin Dynasty was short lived and in 207 BC was overthrown by the Han Dynasty (207 BC - AD 220) which became one of East Asia's most long-lived dynasties. In the Second century AD the Han Empire expanded into Central Asia. By this time only three Empires stretched between the Pacific and the Atlantic—China, Parthia, and Rome.

The Romans were the first nation to invent and embody the concept of empire in their two mandates: to wage war and to make and execute laws.  They were the most extensive Western empire until the early modern period, and left a lasting impact on Western Europe. Many languages, cultural values, religious institutions, political divisions, urban centers, and legal systems can trace their origins to the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire governed and rested on exploitative actions. They took slaves and money from the peripheries to support the imperial center. However, the absolute reliance on conquered peoples to carry out the empire's fortune, sustain wealth, and fight wars would ultimately lead to the collapse of the Roman Empire. The Romans were strong believers in what they called their "civilizing mission". This term was legitimized and justified by writers like Cicero who wrote that only under Roman rule could the world flourish and prosper. This ideology, that was envisioned to bring a new world order, was eventually spread across the Mediterranean world and beyond. People started to build houses like Romans, eat the same food, wear the same clothes and engage in the same cruel games. Even rights of citizenship and authority to rule were granted to people not of Roman or Italian birth. This authority given to people outside of Roman culture is an example of how its empire collapsed, with a strong dependence on "foreign" rulers.

The Latin word imperium, referring to a magistrate's power to command, gradually assumed the meaning "The territory in which a magistrate can effectively enforce his commands", while the term "imperator" was originally an honorific meaning "commander". The title was given to generals who were victorious in battle. Thus, an "empire" may include regions that are not legally within the territory of a state, but are under either direct or indirect control of that state, such as a colony, client state, or protectorate. Although historians use the terms "Republican Period" and "Imperial Period" to identify the periods of Roman history before and after absolute power was assumed by Augustus, the Romans themselves continued to refer to their government as a republic, and during the Republican Period, the territories controlled by the republic were referred to as "Imperium Romanum". The emperor's actual legal power derived from holding the office of "consul", but he was traditionally honored with the titles of imperator (commander) and princeps (first man or, chief). Later, these terms came to have legal significance in their own right; an army calling their general "imperator" was a direct challenge to the authority of the current emperor. 

The legal systems of France and its former colonies are strongly influenced by Roman law.  Similarly, the United States was founded on a model inspired by the Roman Republic, with upper and lower legislative assemblies, and executive power vested in a single individual, the president. The president, as "commander-in-chief" of the armed forces, reflects the ancient Roman titles imperator princeps.  The Roman Catholic Church, founded in the early Imperial Period, spread across Europe, first by the activities of Christian evangelists, and later by official imperial promulgation.

Post-classical period

In western Asia, the term "Persian Empire" came to denote the Iranian imperial states established at different historical periods of pre–Islamic and post–Islamic Persia. In East Asia, various Celestial empires arose periodically between periods of war, civil war, and foreign conquests. The greatest of them was the Tang Empire (AD 618-907).

The 7th century saw the emergence of the Islamic Empire, also referred to as the Arab Empire. The Rashidun Caliphate expanded from the Arabian Peninsula and swiftly conquered the Persian Empire and much of the Byzantine Roman Empire. Its successor state, the Umayyad Caliphate, expanded across North Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula. By the beginning of the 8th century, the Umayyad Caliphate had become the largest empire in history, it would not be surpassed in size until the establishment of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. In 750 the Caliphate clashed with the Tang China at Talas. By this time only these two Empires stretched between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

In the 7th century, Maritime Southeast Asia witnessed the rise of a Buddhist thallasocracy, the Srivijaya Empire, which thrived for 600 years and was succeeded by the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit Empire that ruled from the 13th to 15th centuries. In the Southeast Asian mainland, the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire was centered in the city of Angkor and  flourished from the 9th to 13th centuries. Following the demise of the Khmer Empire, the Siamese Empire flourished alongside the Burmese and Lan Chang Empires from the 13th through the 18th centuries. In Eastern Europe, during the year of 917, the Byzantine Empire was forced to recognize the Imperial title of Bulgarian rulers (who were called Tsars). The Bulgarian Empire remained a major power in the Balkans until its fall in the late 14th century.

At the time, in the Medieval West, the title "empire" had a specific technical meaning that was exclusively applied to states that considered themselves the heirs and successors of the Roman Empire. Among these were the Byzantine Empire, which was the actual continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Carolingian Empire, the largely Germanic Holy Roman Empire, and the Russian Empire. Yet, these states did not always fit the geographic, political, or military profiles of empires in the modern sense of the word. To legitimise their imperium, these states directly claimed the title of Empire from Rome. The sacrum Romanum imperium (Holy Roman Empire), which lasted from 800 to 1806, claimed to have exclusively comprehended Christian principalities, and was only nominally a discrete imperial state. The Holy Roman Empire was not always centrally-governed, as it had neither core nor peripheral territories, and was not governed by a central, politico-military elite. Hence, Voltaire's remark that the Holy Roman Empire "was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire" is accurate to the degree that it ignores  German rule over Italian, French, Provençal, Polish, Flemish, Dutch, and Bohemian populations, and the efforts of the ninth-century Holy Roman Emperors (i.e., the Ottonians) to establish central control. Voltaire's "... nor an empire" observation applies to its late period.

In 1204, after the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople, the crusaders established a Latin Empire (1204–1261) in that city, while the defeated Byzantine Empire's descendants established two smaller, short-lived empires in Asia Minor: the Empire of Nicaea (1204–1261) and the Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461). Constantinople was retaken in 1261 by the Byzantine successor state centered in Nicaea, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire until 1453, by which time the Turkish-Muslim Ottoman Empire (ca. 1300–1918), had conquered most of the region. The Ottoman Empire was a successor of the Abbasid Empire and it was the most powerful empire to succeed the Abbasi empires at the time, as well as one of the most powerful empires in the world.  The Ottoman Empire centered on modern day Turkey, dominated the eastern Mediterranean, overthrew the Byzantine Empire to claim Constantinople and it would start battering at Austria and Malta, which were countries that were key to central and to south-west Europe respectively — mainly for their geographical location. The reason these occurrences of batterings were so important was because the Ottomans were Muslim, and the rest of Europe was Christian, so there was a sense of religious fighting going on.  This was not just a rivalry of East and West but a rivalry between Christians and Muslims.  Both the Christians and Muslims had alliances with other countries, and they had problems in them as well.  The flows of trade and of cultural influences across the supposed great divide never ceased, so the countries never stopped bartering with each other.  These epochal clashes between civilizations profoundly shaped many people's thinking back then, and continues to do so in the present day.  Modern hatred against Muslim communities in South-Eastern Europe, mainly in Bosnia and Kosovo, has often been articulated in terms of seeing them as unwelcome residues of this imperialism: in short, as Turks.  Moreover, Eastern Orthodox imperialism was not re-established until the coronation of Peter the Great as Emperor of Russia in 1721. Likewise, with the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), the Austrian Empire (1804–1867) emerged reconstituted as the Empire of Austria–Hungary (1867–1918), having "inherited" the imperium of Central and Western Europe from the losers of said wars.

In the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan expanded the Mongol Empire to be the largest contiguous empire in the world. However, within two generations, the empire was separated into four discrete khanates under Genghis Khan's grandsons. One of them, Kublai Khan, conquered China and established the Yuan Dynasty with the imperial capital at Beijing. One family ruled the whole Eurasian land mass from the Pacific to the Adriatic and Baltic Seas. The emergence of the Pax Mongolica had significantly eased trade and commerce across Asia.  

In the pre-Columbian America, two Empires were prominents—the Azteca in Mesoamerica and Inca in Peru. Both existed for several generations before the arrival of the Europeans. Inca had gradually conquered the whole of the settled Andean world as far south as today Santaigo in Chile.

In Oceania, the Tonga Empire was a lonely empire that existed from the Medieval to the Modern period.

Colonial empires

In the 15th century, European landings in the so-called "New World" (first, the Americas, and later Australia), along with Portuguese travels around the Cape of Good Hope and along the coast of Africa bordering the southeast Indian Ocean, proved ripe opportunities for the continent's Renaissance-era monarchies to establish colonial empires like those of the ancient Romans and Greeks. In the Old World, colonial imperialism was attempted and established on the Canary Islands and Ireland. These conquered lands and people became de jure subordinates of the empire, rather than de facto imperial territories and subjects. Such subjugation often elicited "client-state" resentment that the empire unwisely ignored, leading to the collapse of the European colonial imperial system in the late 19th century and the early and mid-20th century. Spanish discovery of the New World gave way to many expeditions led by England (later Britain), Portugal, France, the Dutch Republic, and Spain. In the 18th century, the Spanish Empire was at its height because of the great mass of goods taken from conquered territory in the Americas (nowaday Mexico, parts of the United States, the Caribbean, most of Central America, and South America) and the Philippines.

Modern period

The French emperors Napoleon I and Napoleon III (See: Premier Empire, Second French Empire, and French colonial empire) each attempted establishing a western imperial hegemony centered in France. The German Empire (1871–1918), another "heir to the Holy Roman Empire", arose in 1871.

The Ashanti Empire (or Confederacy), also Asanteman (1701–1896), was a West African state of the Ashanti, the Akan people of the Ashanti Region, Akanland in modern-day Ghana. The Ashanti (or Asante) were a powerful, militaristic and highly disciplined people in West Africa. Their military power, which came from effective strategy and an early adoption of European firearms, created an empire that stretched from central Akanland (in modern-day Ghana) to present day Benin and Ivory Coast, bordered by the Dagomba kingdom to the north and Dahomey to the east. Due to the empire's military prowess, sophisticated hierarchy, social stratification and culture, the Ashanti empire had one of the largest historiographies of any indigenous Sub-Saharan African political entity.

The Sikh Empire (1799–1846) was established in the Punjab region of India. The empire collapsed when its founder, Ranjit Singh, died and its army fell to the British. During the same period, the Maratha Empire (also known as the Maratha Confederacy) was a Hindu state located in present-day India. It existed from 1674 to 1818, and at its peak, the empire's territories covered much of Southern Asia. The empire was founded and consolidated by Shivaji. After the death of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, it expanded greatly under the rule of the Peshwas. In 1761, the Maratha army lost the Third Battle of Panipat, which halted the expansion of the empire. Later, the empire was divided into a confederacy of states which, in 1818, were lost to the British during the Anglo-Maratha wars. 

The British established their first empire (1583–1783) in North America by colonising lands that made up British America, including parts of Canada and the Thirteen Colonies. In 1776, the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies declared itself independent from the British Empire, thus beginning the American Revolution. Britain turned towards Asia, the Pacific, and later Africa, with subsequent exploration leading to the rise of the Second British Empire (1783–1815), which was followed by the Industrial Revolution and Britain's Imperial Century (1815–1914). It became the largest empire in world history, encompassing one quarter of the world's land area and one fifth of its population,  the impacts of which are still widespread in the current age. 

The term “American Empire” refers to the United States’ cultural ideologies and foreign policy strategies. The term is most commonly used to describe the U.S.’s status since the 20th century, but it can also be applied to the United States’ world standing before the rise of nationalism in the 20th century. The United States is not traditionally recognized as an empire, in part because the U.S. adopted a different political system from those that previous empires had used. Despite these systematic differences, the political objectives and strategies of the United States government have been quite similar to those of previous empires. For example, one academic, Krishna Kumar, argues the distinct principles of nationalism and imperialism may result in common practice; that is, the pursuit of nationalism can often coincide with the pursuit of imperialism in terms of strategy and decision making.  Throughout the 19th century, the United States government attempted to expand their territory by any means necessary. Regardless of the supposed motivation for this constant expansion, all of these land acquisitions were carried out by imperialistic means. This was done by financial means in some cases, and by military force in others. Most notably, the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the Texas Annexation (1845), and the Mexican Cession (1848) highlight the imperialistic goals of the United States during this “modern period” of imperialism. The U.S. government has stopped pursuing additional territories since the mid 20th century. However, some scholars still consider U.S. foreign policy strategies to be imperialistic. This idea is explored in the “contemporary usage” section. 

Transition from empire

In time, an empire may change from one political entity to another. To wit, the Holy Roman Empire, a German re-constitution of the Roman Empire, metamorphosed into various political structures (i.e., federalism), and eventually, under Habsburg rule, re-constituted itself as the Austrian Empire, an empire of much different politics and vaster extension.

An autocratic empire can become a republic (e.g., the Central African Empire in 1979), or it can become a republic with its imperial dominions reduced to a core territory (e.g., Weimar Germany (1918–1919) and the Ottoman Empire (1918–1923)). The dissolution of the Austro–Hungarian Empire after 1918 is an example of a multi-ethnic superstate broken into its constituent states: the republics, kingdoms, and provinces of Austria, Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czechoslovakia, Ruthenia, Galicia, et al.

After the Second World War (1939–1945), the process became commonly known as decolonisation. The British Empire evolved into a loose, multinational Commonwealth of Nations, while the French colonial empire metamorphosed to a Francophone commonwealth. The French territory of Kwang-Chou-Wan was given back to China in 1946. The British gave Hong Kong back to China in 1997 after 150 years of rule. The Portuguese territory of Macau was given back to China in 1999. Macau and Hong Kong were not incorporated into the provincial structure of China; they have an autonomous system of government as Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China.

France still governs colonies (French Guyana, Martinique, Réunion, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, St Martin, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Guadeloupe, TAAF, Wallis and Futuna, Saint Barthélemy, and Mayotte) and exerts hegemony in Francophone Africa (29 francophone countries such as Chad, Rwanda, et cetera). Fourteen British Overseas Territories remain under British sovereignty. Sixteen countries of the Commonwealth of Nations share their head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, as Commonwealth realms.

While the notion of "formal empire" may have ended, it is important to note that many of these former colonial populations still continue to face the historical legacy of colonialism. While traditional sovereignty has been granted to these political units, one must not forget the economic, political and cultural entanglements that continue to affect these subject populations. Therefore, discursive practices of Empire are still present in countries today.

Contemporary usage

Contemporaneously, the concept of empire is politically valid, yet is not always used in the traditional sense. For example, Japan is considered the world's sole remaining empire because of the continued presence of the Japanese Emperor in national politics. Despite the semantic reference to imperial power, Japan is a de jure constitutional monarchy, with a homogeneous population of 127 million people that is 98.5 percent ethnic Japanese, making it one of the largest nation-states. 

Characterizing some aspects of American foreign policy and international behavior as "American Empire" is controversial but not uncommon. This characterization is controversial because of the strong tendency in American society to reject claims of American imperialism. The initial motivations for the inception of the United States eventually led to the development of this tendency, which has been perpetuated by the country-wide obsession with this national narrative. The United States was formed because colonists did not like being under control of the British Empire. Essentially, the United States was formed in an attempt to reject imperialism. This makes it very hard for people to acknowledge America’s status as an empire. This active rejection of imperialist status is not limited to high-ranking government officials, as it has been engrained in American society throughout its entire history. As David Ludden explains, “journalists, scholars, teachers, students, analysts, and politicians prefer to depict the U.S. as a nation pursuing its own interests and ideals.” This often results in imperialist endeavors being presented as measures taken to enhance national security. Ludden explains this phenomena with the concept of “ideological blinders”, which he says prevent American citizens from realizing the true nature of America’s current systems and strategies. These “ideological blinders” that people wear have resulted in an “invisible” American empire of which most American citizens are unaware.

Stuart Creighton Miller posits that the public's sense of innocence about Realpolitik (cf. American Exceptionalism) impairs popular recognition of US imperial conduct since it governed other countries via surrogates. These surrogates were domestically-weak, right-wing governments that would collapse without US support.  Former President G.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, said: "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic; we never have been."  This statement directly contradicts Thomas Jefferson who, in the 1780s while awaiting the fall of the Spanish empire, said: "...till our population can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece".    In turn, historian Sidney Lens argues that from its inception, the US has used every means available to dominate other nations. 

Since the European Union began in 1993 as a west European trade bloc, it has established its own currency, the Euro (1999), established discrete military forces, and exercised its limited hegemony in parts of eastern Europe and Asia. The political scientist [http://users.ox.ac.uk/~polf0040/ Jan Zielonka] suggests that this behaviour is imperial because it coerces its neighbouring countries into adopting its European economic, legal, and political structures.      

In his book review of Empire (2000) by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Mehmet Akif Okur posits that since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, the international relations determining the world's balance of power (political, economic, military) have been altered. These alterations include the intellectual (political science) trends that perceive the contemporary world's order via the re-territorrialisation of political space, the re-emergence of classical imperialist practices (the "inside" vs. "outside" duality, cf. the Other), the deliberate weakening of international organisations, the restructured international economy, economic nationalism, the expanded arming of most countries, the proliferation of nuclear weapon capabilities and the politics of identity emphasizing a state's subjective perception of its place in the world, as a nation and as a civilisation. These changes constitute the "Age of Nation Empires"; as imperial usage, nation-empire denotes the return of geopolitical power from global power blocs to regional power blocs (i.e., centred upon a "regional power" state [China, Russia, U.S., et al.]) and regional multi-state power alliances (i.e., Europe, Latin America, South East Asia). Nation-empire regionalism claims sovereignty over their respective (regional) political (social, economic, ideologic), cultural, and military spheres. 

Timeline of empires

The chart below shows a timeline of polities that have been called empires. Dynastic changes are marked with a white line.
* The Roman Empire's timeline listed below only includes the Western portion. The Byzantine continuation of the Roman Empire is listed separately.
* The Empires of Nicaea and Trebizond were Byzantine successor states.
* The Empire of Bronze Age Egypt is not included in the graph. Established by Narmer circa 3000 BC, it lasted as long as China until it was conquered by Persia in 525 BC.
* Japan is presented for the period of its overseas Empire (1895-1945). The original Japanese Empire of "the Eight Islands" would be third persistent after Egypt and China.  
*Many Indian empires are also included, though only Mauryan, Gupta and Mughals ruled most of the India.

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DateFormat = yyyy
Period     = from:-900 till:2009
TimeAxis   = orientation:vertical
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:100 start:-900

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Theoretical research

Empires have been the dominant international organization in world history. Political scientist Hedley Bull wrote that "in the broad sweep of human history…the form of states system has been the exception rather than the rule."  Political scientist Robert Gilpin confirmed Bull's conclusion for the pre-modern period:

Historian Michael Doyle who undertook an extensive research on empires extended the observation into the modern era:

A later group of political scientists, working on the phenomenon of the current unipolarity, in 2007 edited research on several pre-modern civilizations by experts in respective fields. The overall conclusion was that the balance of power was inherently unstable order and usually soon broke in favor of imperial order.  Yet before the advent of the unipolarity, world historian Arnold Toynbee and political scientist Martin Wight had drawn the same conclusion with an unambiguous implication for the modern world:

Much earlier, Fichte, having witnessed the battle at Jena in 1806 when Napoleon overwhelmed Prussia, described what he perceived as a deep historical trend:

Fichte's later compatriot, Geographer Alexander von Humboldt (1769 –1859), in the mid-Nineteenth century observed a macro-historic trend of imperial growth in both Hemispheres: "Men of great and strong minds, as well as whole nations, acted under influence of one idea, the purity of which was utterly unknown to them." 

The imperial expansion filled the world circa 1900. Two famous contemporary observers—Frederick Turner and Halford Mackinder described the event and drew implications, the former predicting American overseas expansion and the latter stressing that the world empire is now in sight. 

Two their contemporaries—Kang Yu-wei and George Vacher de Lapouge—stressed that imperial expansion cannot indefinitely proceed on the definite surface of the globe and world empire is imminent. Kang Yu-wei in 1885 believed that the imperial trend will culminate in the contest between Washington and Berlin and Vacher de Lapouge in 1899 estimated that the final contest will be between Russia and America in which America is likely to triumph. 

Later, four Anthropologists—Hornell Hart, Raoul Naroll, Louis Morano, and Robert Carneiro—researched expanding imperial cycles. They reached the same conclusion that a world empire is not only pre-determined but close at hand and attempted to estimate the time of its appearance. 

Chalmers Johnson argues that the US globe-girding network of hundreds of military bases already represents a global empire in its initial form:

The most unitary form of empire was described by Michael Doyle in his Empires. It is empire in which its two main components—the ruling core and the ruled periphery—merged to form one integrated whole. At this stage the empire as defined ceases to exist and becomes world state. Doyle exemplifies the transformation on the example of the Roman Emperor Caracalla whose legislation in AD 212 extended the Roman citizenship to all inhabitants of the Mediterranean world. Written records of the history of China can be found from as early as 1500 BC   under the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC).  Ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian (ca. 100 BC) and the Bamboo Annals describe a Xia dynasty (c. 2070–1600 BC), which had no system of writing on a durable medium, before the Shang.  The Yellow River is said to be the cradle of Chinese civilization, although cultures originated at various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys millennia ago in the Neolithic era. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest civilizations,  and is regarded as one of the cradles of civilization. 

Much of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy further developed during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC). The Zhou dynasty began to bow to external and internal pressures in the 8th century BC, and the kingdom eventually broke apart into smaller states, beginning in the Spring and Autumn period and reaching full expression in the Warring States period. This is one of multiple periods of failed statehood in Chinese history, the most recent being the Chinese Civil War that started in 1927.

Between eras of multiple kingdoms and warlordism, Chinese dynasties have ruled parts or all of China; in some eras control stretched as far as Xinjiang and Tibet, as at present. In 221 BC Qin Shi Huang united the various warring kingdoms and created for himself the title of "emperor" (huangdi) of the Qin dynasty, marking the beginning of imperial China. Successive dynasties developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the emperor to control vast territories directly. China's last dynasty was the Qing (1644–1912), which was replaced by the Republic of China in 1912, and in the mainland by the People's Republic of China in 1949.

In the 21 centuries from 206 BC until AD 1912, routine administrative tasks were handled by a special elite, the Scholar-officials ("Scholar-gentlemen"). Young men were carefully selected through difficult examinations and were well-versed in calligraphy and philosophy.  
The conventional view of Chinese history is that of alternating periods of political unity and disunity, with China occasionally being dominated by steppe peoples, most of whom were in turn assimilated into the Han Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from other parts of Asia and the Western world, carried by successive waves of immigration, cultural assimilation, expansion, and foreign contact, form the basis of the modern culture of China.

Prehistory 

Paleolithic

What is now China was inhabited by Homo erectus more than a million years ago.  Recent study shows that the stone tools found at Xiaochangliang site are magnetostratigraphically dated to 1.36 million years ago.  The archaeological site of Xihoudu in Shanxi Province is the earliest recorded use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1.27 million years ago.
The excavations at Yuanmou and later Lantian show early habitation. Perhaps the most famous specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man discovered in 1923–27. Fossilised teeth of Homo sapiens dating to 125,000–80,000 BCE have been discovered in Fuyan Cave in Dao County in Hunan. 

Neolithic

The Neolithic age in China can be traced back to about 10,000 BC. 

Early evidence for proto-Chinese millet agriculture is radiocarbon-dated to about 7000 BC.  The earliest evidence of cultivated rice, found by the Yangtze River, is carbon-dated to 8,000 years ago. Farming gave rise to the Jiahu culture (7000 to 5800 BC). At Damaidi in Ningxia, 3,172 cliff carvings dating to 6000–5000 BC have been discovered, "featuring 8,453 individual characters such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing." These pictographs are reputed to be similar to the earliest characters confirmed to be written Chinese.  Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 7000 BC, Dadiwan from 5800 BC to 5400 BC, Damaidi around 6000 BC  and Banpo dating from the 5th millennium BC. Some scholars have suggested that Jiahu symbols (7th millennium BC) were the earliest Chinese writing system. Excavation of a Peiligang culture site in Xinzheng county, Henan, found a community that flourished in 5,500 to 4,900 BC, with evidence of agriculture, constructed buildings, pottery, and burial of the dead.  With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and the potential to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a center of Yangshao culture (5000 BC to 3000 BC), and the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of these was found at Banpo, Xi'an.  Later, Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture, which was also centered on the Yellow River from about 3000 BC to 2000 BC.

Bronze Age

Bronze artifacts have been found at the Majiayao culture site (between 3100 and 2700 BC),   The Bronze Age is also represented at the Lower Xiajiadian culture  (2200–1600 BC ) site in northeast China.

Ancient China 

Xia dynasty (c. 2100 – c. 1600 BC)

The Xia dynasty of China (from c. 2100 to c. 1600 BC) is the first dynasty to be described in ancient historical records such as Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian and Bamboo Annals.

Although there is disagreement as to whether the dynasty actually existed, there is some archaeological evidence pointing to its possible existence. Writing in the late 2nd century BC, Sima Qian dated the founding of the Xia dynasty to around 2200 BC, but this date has not been corroborated. Most archaeologists now connect the Xia to excavations at Erlitou in central Henan province,  where a bronze smelter from around 2000 BC was unearthed. Early markings from this period found on pottery and shells are thought to be ancestral to modern Chinese characters.  With few clear records matching the Shang oracle bones or the Zhou bronze vessel writings, the Xia era remains poorly understood.

According to mythology, the dynasty ended around 1600 BC as a consequence of the Battle of Mingtiao.

Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC)

Capital: Yin, near Anyang

Archaeological findings providing evidence for the existence of the Shang dynasty, c. 1600–1046 BC, are divided into two sets. The first set, from the earlier Shang period, comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou, and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin (殷) period, is at Anyang, in modern-day Henan, which has been confirmed as the last of the Shang's nine capitals (c. 1300–1046 BC). The findings at Anyang include the earliest written record of Chinese past so far discovered: inscriptions of divination records in ancient Chinese writing on the bones or shells of animals — the so-called "oracle bones", dating from around 1500 BC.

31 kings reigned over the Shang dynasty. During their reign, according to the Records of the Grand Historian, the capital city was moved six times. The final (and most important) move was to Yin in 1350 BC which led to the dynasty's golden age. The term Yin dynasty has been synonymous with the Shang dynasty in history, although it has lately been used to refer specifically to the latter half of the Shang dynasty.

Chinese historians living in later periods were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, but the actual political situation in early China is known to have been much more complicated. Hence, as some scholars of China suggest, the Xia and the Shang can possibly refer to political entities that existed concurrently, just as the early Zhou is known to have existed at the same time as the Shang.

Although written records found at Anyang confirm the existence of the Shang dynasty, Western scholars are often hesitant to associate settlements that are contemporaneous with the Anyang settlement with the Shang dynasty. For example, archaeological findings at Sanxingdui suggest a technologically advanced civilization culturally unlike Anyang. The evidence is inconclusive in proving how far the Shang realm extended from Anyang. The leading hypothesis is that Anyang, ruled by the same Shang in the official history, coexisted and traded with numerous other culturally diverse settlements in the area that is now referred to as China proper.

Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC)

Capitals: Xi'an, Luoyang

The Zhou dynasty (1046 BC to approximately 256 BC) was the longest-lasting dynasty in Chinese history. By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou dynasty began to emerge in the Yellow River valley, overrunning the territory of the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. The Zhou lived west of the Shang, and the Zhou leader had been appointed Western Protector by the Shang. The ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, with the assistance of his brother, the Duke of Zhou, as regent, managed to defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye.

The king of Zhou at this time invoked the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule, a concept that would be influential for almost every succeeding dynasty. Like Shangdi, Heaven (tian) ruled over all the other gods, and it decided who would rule China. It was believed that a ruler had lost the Mandate of Heaven when natural disasters occurred in great number, and when, more realistically, the sovereign had apparently lost his concern for the people. In response, the royal house would be overthrown, and a new house would rule, having been granted the Mandate of Heaven.

The Zhou initially moved their capital west to an area near modern Xi'an, on the Wei River, a tributary of the Yellow River, but they would preside over a series of expansions into the Yangtze River valley. This would be the first of many population migrations from north to south in Chinese history.

Spring and Autumn period (722–476 BC)

Capitals: Beijing ; Xi'an 

In the 8th century BC, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn period, named after the influential Spring and Autumn Annals. In this period, local military leaders used by the Zhou began to assert their power and vie for hegemony. The situation was aggravated by the invasion of other peoples from the northwest, such as the Qin, forcing the Zhou to move their capital east to Luoyang. This marks the second major phase of the Zhou dynasty: the Eastern Zhou. The Spring and Autumn period is marked by a falling apart of the central Zhou power. In each of the hundreds of states that eventually arose, local strongmen held most of the political power and continued their subservience to the Zhou kings in name only. Some local leaders even started using royal titles for themselves. China now consisted of hundreds of states, some of them only as large as a village with a fort.

The Hundred Schools of Thought of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period, and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism and Mohism were founded, partly in response to the changing political world.

Warring States period (476–221 BC)

Capitals: several 

After further political consolidation, seven prominent states remained by the end of 5th century BC, and the years in which these few states battled each other are known as the Warring States period. Though there remained a nominal Zhou king until 256 BC, he was largely a figurehead and held little real power.

As neighboring territories of these warring states, including areas of modern Sichuan and Liaoning, were annexed, they were governed under the new local administrative system of commandery and prefecture (郡縣/郡县). This system had been in use since the Spring and Autumn period, and parts can still be seen in the modern system of Sheng & Xian (province and county, 省縣/省县).

The final expansion in this period began during the reign of Ying Zheng, the king of Qin. His unification of the other six powers, and further annexations in the modern regions of Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi in 214 BC, enabled him to proclaim himself the First Emperor (Qin Shi Huang).

Imperial China 

Qin dynasty (221–206 BC)

Capital: Xianyang

Historians often refer to the period from Qin dynasty to the end of Qing dynasty as Imperial China. Though the unified reign of the First Qin Emperor lasted only 12 years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang (close to modern Xi'an). The doctrine of Legalism that guided the Qin emphasized strict adherence to a legal code and the absolute power of the emperor. This philosophy, while effective for expanding the empire in a military fashion, proved unworkable for governing it in peacetime. The Qin Emperor presided over the brutal silencing of political opposition, including the event known as the burning of books and burying of scholars. This would be the impetus behind the later Han synthesis incorporating the more moderate schools of political governance.

Major contributions of the Qin include the concept of a centralized government, the unification of the legal code, development of the written language, measurement, and currency of China after the tribulations of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Even something as basic as the length of axles for carts—which need to match ruts in the roads—had to be made uniform to ensure a viable trading system throughout the empire. Also as part of its centralization, the Qin connected the northern border walls of the states it defeated, making the first Great Wall of China.

A major Qin innovation that lasted until 1912 was reliance upon a trained intellectual elite, the Scholar-official ("Scholar-gentlemen"). They were civil servants appointed by the Emperor to handle daily governance. Talented young men were selected through an elaborate process of imperial examination. They had to demonstrate skill at calligraphy, and had to know knew Confucian philosophy. Historian Wing-Tsit Chan concludes that:
Generally speaking, the record of these scholar-gentlemen has been a worthy one. It was good enough to be praised and imitated in 18th century Europe. Nevertheless, it has given China a tremendous handicap in their transition from government by men to government by law, and personal considerations in Chinese government have been a curse. 

Han dynasty (202 BC–AD 220)

Capitals: Chang'an, Luoyang, Liyang, Xuchang

Western Han

The Han dynasty was founded by Liu Bang, who emerged victorious in the civil war that followed the collapse of the unified but short-lived Qin dynasty. A golden age in Chinese history, the Han dynasty's long period of stability and prosperity consolidated the foundation of China as a unified state under a central imperial bureaucracy, which was to last intermittently for most of the next two millennium. During the Han dynasty, territory of China was extended to most of the China proper and to areas far west. Confucianism was officially elevated to orthodox status and was to shape the subsequent Chinese Civilization. Art, culture and science all advanced to unprecedented heights. With the profound and lasting impacts of this period of Chinese history, the dynasty name "Han" had been taken as the name of the Chinese people, now the dominant ethnic group in modern China, and had been commonly used to refer to Chinese language and written characters.

After the initial Laissez-faire policies of Emperors Wen and Jing, the ambitious Emperor Wu brought the empire to its zenith. To consolidate his power, Confucianism, which emphasizes stability and order in a well-structured society, was given exclusive patronage to be the guiding philosophical thoughts and moral principles of the empire. Imperial Universities were established to support its study and further development, while other schools of thoughts were discouraged.

Major military campaigns were launched to weaken the nomadic Xiongnu Empire, limiting their influence north of the Great Wall. Along with the diplomatic efforts led by Zhang Qian, the sphere of influence of the Han Empire extended to the states in the Tarim Basin, opened up the Silk Road that connected China to the west, stimulating bilateral trade and cultural exchange. To the south, various small kingdoms far beyond the Yangtze River Valley were formally incorporated into the empire.

Emperor Wu also dispatched a series of military campaigns against the Baiyue tribes. The Han annexed Minyue in 135 BC and 111 BC, Nanyue in 111 BC, and Dian in 109 BC.  Migration and military expeditions led to the cultural assimilation of the south.  It also brought the Han into contact with kingdoms in Southeast Asia, introducing diplomacy and trade. 

After Emperor Wu, the empire slipped into gradual stagnation and decline. Economically, the state treasury was strained by excessive campaigns and projects, while land acquisitions by elite families gradually drained the tax base. Various consort clans exerted increasing control over strings of incompetent emperors and eventually the dynasty was briefly interrupted by the usurpation of Wang Mang.

Xin dynasty

In AD 9, the usurper Wang Mang claimed that the Mandate of Heaven called for the end of the Han dynasty and the rise of his own, and he founded the short-lived Xin ("New") dynasty. Wang Mang started an extensive program of land and other economic reforms, including the outlawing of slavery and land nationalization and redistribution. These programs, however, were never supported by the landholding families, because they favored the peasants. The instability of power brought about chaos, uprisings, and loss of territories. This was compounded by mass flooding of the Yellow River; silt buildup caused it to split into two channels and displaced large numbers of farmers. Wang Mang was eventually killed in Weiyang Palace by an enraged peasant mob in AD 23.

Eastern Han

Emperor Guangwu reinstated the Han dynasty with the support of landholding and merchant families at Luoyang, east of the former capital Xi'an. Thus, this new era is termed the Eastern Han dynasty. With the capable administrations of Emperors Ming and Zhang, former glories of the dynasty was reclaimed, with brilliant military and cultural achievements. The Xiongnu Empire was decisively defeated. The diplomat and general Ban Chao further expanded the conquests across the Pamirs to the shores of the Caspian Sea,  thus reopening the Silk Road, and bringing trade, foreign cultures, along with the arrival of Buddhism. With extensive connections with the west, the first of several Roman embassies to China were recorded in Chinese sources, coming from the sea route in AD 166, and a second one in AD 284.

The Eastern Han dynasty was one of the most prolific era of science and technology in ancient China, notably the historic invention of papermaking by Cai Lun, and the numerous contributions by the polymath Zhang Heng.

Three Kingdoms (AD 220–280)

Capitals: Luoyang ; Chengdu ; Jiankang ; Chang'an 

By the 2nd century, the empire declined amidst land acquisitions, invasions, and feuding between consort clans and eunuchs. The Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in AD 184, ushering in an era of warlords. In the ensuing turmoil, three states tried to gain predominance in the period of the Three Kingdoms. This time period has been greatly romanticized in works such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

After Cao Cao reunified the north in 208, his son proclaimed the Wei dynasty in 220. Soon, Wei's rivals Shu and Wu proclaimed their independence, leading China into the Three Kingdoms period. This period was characterized by a gradual decentralization of the state that had existed during the Qin and Han dynasties, and an increase in the power of great families.

In 265, the Jin dynasty overthrew the Wei and later unified the country in 280, but this union was short-lived.

Jin dynasty (AD 265–420)

Capitals: Chang'an ; Jiankang 

The Jin dynasty was severely weakened by interceine fighting among imperial princes and lost control of northern China after non-Han Chinese settlers rebelled and captured Luoyang and Chang’an.  In 317, a Jin prince in modern-day Nanjing became emperor and continued the dynasty, now known as the Eastern Jin, which held southern China for another century. Prior to this move, historians refer to the Jin dynasty as the Western Jin.

Northern China fragmented into a series of independent kingdoms, most of which were founded by Xiongnu, Xianbei, Jie, Di and Qiang rulers.  These non-Han peoples were ancestors of the Turks, Mongols, and Tibetans. Many had, to some extent, been "sinicized" long before their ascent to power. In fact, some of them, notably the Qiang and the Xiongnu, had already been allowed to live in the frontier regions within the Great Wall since late Han times.  During the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, warfare ravaged the north and prompted large-scale Han Chinese migration south to the Yangtze Basin and Delta.

Northern and Southern dynasties (AD 420–589)

Capitals: Ye, Chang'an ; Jiankang 

In the early 5th century, China entered a period known as the Northern and Southern dynasties, in which parallel regimes ruled the northern and southern halves of the country.  In the south, the Eastern Jin gave way to the Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang and finally Chen.  Each of these Southern Dynasties were led by Han Chinese ruling families and used Jiankang (modern Nanjing) as the capital.  They held off attacks from the north and preserved many aspects of Chinese civilization, while northern barbarian regimes began to sinify.

In the north, the last of the Sixteen Kingdoms was extinguished in 439 by the Northern Wei, a kingdom founded by the Xianbei, a nomadic people who unified northern China. The Northern Wei eventually split into the Eastern and Western Wei, which then became the Northern Qi and Northern Zhou.  These regimes were dominated by Xianbei or Han Chinese who had married into Xianbei families.

Despite the division of the country, Buddhism spread throughout the land.   In southern China, fierce debates about whether Buddhism should be allowed were held frequently by the royal court and nobles. Finally, towards the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, Buddhists and Taoists reached a compromise and became more tolerant of each other.

In 589, the Sui dynasty united China once again, ending a prolonged period of division in Chinese history.  In the nearly four centuries between the Han and Sui dynasties, the country was united for only 24 years during the Western Jin.

Sui dynasty (AD 589–618)

Capital: Daxing ; Dongdu 

The Sui dynasty, which lasted 29 years, played a role more important than its length of existence would suggest. The Sui brought China together again and set up many institutions that were to be adopted by their successors, the Tang. These included the government system of Three Departments and Six Ministries, standard coinage, improved defense and expansion of the Great Wall, and official support for Buddhism. Like the Qin, however, the Sui overused their resources and collapsed.

Tang dynasty (AD 618–907)

Capitals: Chang'an, Luoyang

According to historian Mark Edward Lewis:
Most Chinese regard the Tang dynasty (618-907) as the high point of Imperial China, both politically and culturally. The empire reached its greatest size prior to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, becoming the center of and East Asian world linked by religion, script, and many economic and political institutions. Moreover, Tang writers produce the finest poetry in China's great lyric tradition. 

The Tang dynasty was founded by Emperor Gaozu on 18 June 618. It was a golden age of Chinese civilization with significant developments in art, literature, particularly poetry, and technology. Buddhism became the predominant religion for common people. Chang'an (modern Xi'an), the national capital, was the largest city in the world of its time. 

The second emperor, Taizong, started military campaigns to eliminate threats from nomadic tribes, extend the border, and submit neighboring states into a tributary system. Military victories in the Tarim Basin kept the Silk Road open, connecting Chang'an to Central Asia and areas far to the west. In the south, lucrative maritime trade routes began from port cities such as Guangzhou. There was extensive trade with distant foreign countries, and many foreign merchants settled in China, encouraging a cosmopolitan culture. The Tang culture and social systems were observed and imitated by neighboring countries such as Japan. Internally the Grand Canal linked the political heartland in Chang'an to the economic and agricultural centers in the eastern and southern parts of the empire.

Underlying the prosperity of the early Tang dynasty was a strong centralized bureaucracy with efficient policies. The government was organized as "Three Departments and Six Ministries" to separately draft, review, and implement policies. These departments were run by royal family members as well as scholar officials who were selected by imperial examinations. These practices, which matured in the Tang dynasty, were continued by the later dynasties, with some modifications.

Under the Tang "equal-field system" all land was owned by the Emperor and granted to people according to household size. Men granted land were conscripted for military service for a fixed period each year, a military policy known as the "Fubing system". These policies stimulated a rapid growth in productivity and a significant army without much burden on the state treasury. By the dynasty's midpoint, however, standing armies had replaced conscription, and land was continuously falling into the hands of private owners.

The dynasty continued to flourish under Empress Wu Zetian, the only empress regnant in Chinese history, and reached its zenith during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, who oversaw an empire that stretched from the Pacific to the Aral Sea with at least 50 million people.

At the zenith of prosperity of the empire, the An Lushan Rebellion from 755 to 763 was a watershed event that devastated the population and drastically weakened the central imperial government. Upon suppression of the rebellion, regional military governors, known as Jiedushi, gained increasingly autonomous status. With loss of revenue from land tax, the central imperial government relied heavily on salt monopoly. Nevertheless, civil society recovered and thrived amidst the weakened imperial bureaucracy. Externally, former submissive states raided the empire and the vast border territories were irreversibly lost for subsequent centuries.

In late Tang period. ineffective and corrupted rules in imperial court and regional warlords triggered widespread revolts. The most catastrophic was the Huang Chao Rebellion, from 874 to 884, which raided the entire empire for a decade. The sack of southern port Guangzhou in 879 was followed by massacre of most of its inhabitants, along with the large foreign merchant enclaves.   By 881, both capitals Luoyang and Chang'an fell successively. The reliance on ethnic Han and Turkic warlords in suppressing the rebellion escalated their powers. Consequently, upon the fall of the dynasty by Zhu Wen's usurpation. an era of fragmentation followed.

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (AD 907–960)

Capitals: Kaifeng, Luoyang (Five Dynasties), various cities (Ten Kingdoms)

The period of political disunity between the Tang and the Song, known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, lasted from 907 to 960. During this half-century, China was in all respects a multi-state system. Five regimes, namely, (Later) Liang, Tang, Jin, Han and Zhou, rapidly succeeded one another in control of the traditional Imperial heartland in northern China. Among the regimes, rulers of (Later) Tang, Jin and Han were sinicized Shatuo Turks, which ruled over a majority of Chinese people. More stable and smaller regimes of mostly ethnic Han rulers coexisted in south and western China over the period, cumulatively constituted the "Ten Kingdoms".

Amidst political chaos in the north, the strategic Sixteen Prefectures (region along today's Great Wall) were ceded to the emerging Khitan Liao Dynasty, which drastically weakened the defense of the China proper against northern nomadic empires.To the south, Vietnam gained lasting independence after being a Chinese prefecture for many centuries. With wars dominated in Northern China, there were mass southward migrations of population, which further enhanced the southward shift of cultural and economic centers in China. The era ended with the coup of Later Zhou general Zhao Kuangyin, and the establishment the Song dynasty in 960, which would eventually annihilated the remains of the "Ten Kingdoms" and reunified China.

Song, Liao, Jin, and Western Xia dynasties (AD 960–1234)

Capitals: Kaifeng and Lin'an ; Shangjing, Nanjing, Tokmok ; Shangjing, Zhongdu, Kaifeng ; Yinchuan 

In 960, the Song dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu, with its capital established in Kaifeng (also known as Bianjing). In 979. the Song dynasty reunified most of the China proper, while large swaths of outskirt territories were occupied by sinicized nomadic empires. The Khitan Liao dynasty, which lasted from 907 to 1125, ruled over Manchuria, Mongolia, and parts of Northern China. Meanwhile, in what are now the northwestern Chinese provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, and Ningxia, the Tangut tribes founded the Western Xia dynasty from 1032 to 1227.

Aiming to recover the strategic Sixteen Prefectures lost in the previous dynasty, campaigns were launched against the Liao dynasty in the early Song period, which all ended in failure. Then in 1004, the Liao cavalry swept past the exposed North China Plain and reached the outskirt of Kaifeng, forcing the Song's submission to the Chanyuan Treaty, which imposed heavy annual tributes from the Song treasury. The treaty was a significant reversal of Chinese dominance in traditional tributary system. Yet the annual outflow of Song's silver to the Liao were paid back for Chinese goods and products, which expanded the Song economy, and replenished its treasury. This would have dampened the incentive for the Song to further campaign against the Liao. Meanwhile, such cross-border trade and contact induced further sinicization within the Liao Empire, in the expense of its military might derived from primitive nomadic lifestyle. Similar treaties and social-economical consequences recurred in Song's relation to the Jin dynasty.

Within the Liao Empire, the Jurchen tribes revolted against their overlords to establish the Jin dynasty in 1115. In 1125, the devastating Jin cataphract annihilated the Liao dynasty, while remnants of Liao court members fled to Central Asia to found the Qara Khitai Empire (Western Liao Dynasty). Jin's invasion of Song dynasty followed swiftly. In 1127, Kaifeng was sacked, a massive catastrophe known as the Jingkang Incident, ending the era of Northern Song Dynasty. Later the entire northern China was conquered. The survived members of Song court regrouped in the new capital city of Hangzhou (杭州), and initiated the era of Southern Song dynasty, which ruled territories south of the Huai River. In the ensuing years, the territory and population of China were divided between the Song dynasty, the Jin dynasty and the Western Xia dynasty. The era ended by the Mongol conquest, as Western Xia fell in 1227, the Jin dynasty in 1234, and finally the Southern Song dynasty in 1279.

Despite its military weakness, the Song dynasty is widely considered to be the high point of classical Chinese civilization. The Song economy, facilitated by technology advancement, had reached such sophistication probably unseen in world history before its time. Population soared to over 100 millions and the living standard of common people tremendously enhanced, due to improvement of rice cultivation, and the wide availability of coal for production. The capital cities of Kaifeng, and subsequently Hangzhou, were both the most populous cities in the world of their time, and boosted vibrant civil societies unmatched by previous Chinese dynasties. As land trading routes to far west were blocked by nomadic empires, there were extensive maritime trade with neighboring states, which facilitated the use of Song coinage as the de facto currency of exchange, while giant wooden vessels equipped with compasses roamed throughout the China Seas and north Indian Ocean. Concept of insurance was practiced by merchants to hedge the risks of such long-haul maritime shipment. With prosperous economic activities, the historically first use of paper currency emerged in the western city of Chengdu, as supplement to copper coins to some extents.

In science and technology, with innovative scholar-officials such as Su Song (1020–1101) and Shen Kuo (1031–1095). There was court intrigue between the political rivals of the reformers and conservatives, led by the chancellors Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, respectively. By the mid-to-late 13th century, the Chinese had adopted the dogma of Neo-Confucian philosophy formulated by Zhu Xi. Enormous literary works were compiled during the Song dynasty, such as the historical work of the Zizhi Tongjian ("Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government"). Invention of movable-type printing further facilitated the spread of knowledge. Culture and the arts flourished, with grandiose artworks such as Along the River During the Qingming Festival and Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, along with great Buddhist painters such as the prolific Lin Tinggui

Song dynasty also recorded major innovation in the history of warfare. Gunpowder, while invented in the Tang Dynasty, was first put into use in battlefields by the Song army, inspiring successions of new firearms and siege engines designs. During the Southern Song Dynasty, as its survival hinged decisively on guarding the Yangtze and Huai River against the cavalry forces from the north, the first standing navy in China was assembled in 1132, with its admiral's headquarter setup at Dinghai. Paddle-wheel warships equipped with trebuchets could launch incendiary bombs of gunpowder and lime, as recorded in Song's victory over the invading Jin forces at the Battle of Tangdao in the East China Sea, and the Battle of Caishi on Yangtze River in 1161.

The great civilization development of the Song dynasty came to an abrupt end by the devastating Mongol conquest, during which population sharply dwindled, with marked contraction in economy. Despite resistively halting Mongol advance for more than three decades, Hangzhou was sacked in 1276, followed by the final annihilation of the Song standing navy at the Battle of Yamen in 1279.

Yuan dynasty (AD 1271–1368)

Capitals: Xanadu, Dadu

The Jurchen-founded Jin dynasty was defeated by the Mongols, who then proceeded to defeat the Southern Song in a long and bloody war, the first war in which firearms played an important role. During the era after the war, later called the Pax Mongolica, adventurous Westerners such as Marco Polo travelled all the way to China and brought the first reports of its wonders to Europe. In the Yuan dynasty, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to remain based in the steppes and those who wished to adopt the customs of the Chinese.

Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, wanting to adopt the customs of China, established the Yuan dynasty. This was the first dynasty to rule the whole of China from Beijing as the capital. Beijing had been ceded to Liao in AD 938 with the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan Yun. Before that, it had been the capital of the Jin, who did not rule all of China.

Before the Mongol invasion, Chinese dynasties reported approximately 120 million inhabitants; after the conquest had been completed in 1279, the 1300 census reported roughly 60 million people.  This major decline is not necessarily due only to Mongol killings. Scholars such as Frederick W. Mote argue that the wide drop in numbers reflects an administrative failure to record rather than an actual decrease; others such as Timothy Brook argue that the Mongols created a system of enserfment among a huge portion of the Chinese populace, causing many to disappear from the census altogether; other historians including William McNeill and David Morgan consider that plague was the main factor behind the demographic decline during this period.

In the 14th century China suffered additional depredations from epidemics of plague, estimated to have killed 25 million people, 30% of the population of China. 

Ming dynasty (AD 1368–1644)

Capitals: Nanjing, Beijing

Throughout the Yuan dynasty, which lasted less than a century, there was relatively strong sentiment among the populace against Mongol rule. The frequent natural disasters since the 1340s finally led to peasant revolts. The Yuan dynasty was eventually overthrown by the Ming dynasty in 1368.

Urbanization increased as the population grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil.

Despite the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of the increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, China under the early Ming dynasty was not isolated. Foreign trade and other contacts with the outside world, particularly Japan, increased considerably. Chinese merchants explored all of the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa with the voyages of Zheng He.

Zhu Yuanzhang (the Hongwu Emperor), the founder of the dynasty, laid the foundations for a state interested less in commerce and more in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. Perhaps because of Zhu's background as a peasant, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Song and the Mongolian dynasties, which relied on traders and merchants for revenue. Neo-feudal landholdings of the Song and Mongol periods were expropriated by the Ming rulers. Land estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out. Private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of the Yongle Emperor, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. These laws might have paved the way to removing the worst of the poverty during the previous regimes.

The dynasty had a strong and complex central government that unified and controlled the empire. The emperor's role became more autocratic, although Zhu Yuanzhang necessarily continued to use what he called the "Grand Secretariat" to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, including memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records. It was this same bureaucracy that later prevented the Ming government from being able to adapt to changes in society, and eventually led to its decline.

The Yongle Emperor strenuously tried to extend China's influence beyond its borders by demanding other rulers send ambassadors to China to present tribute. A large navy was built, including four-masted ships displacing 1,500 tons. A standing army of 1 million troops (some estimate as many as 1.9 million ) was created. The Chinese armies conquered Vietnam for around 20 years, while the Chinese fleet sailed the China seas and the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the east coast of Africa. The Chinese gained influence in eastern Moghulistan. Several maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tribute for the Chinese emperor. Domestically, the Grand Canal was expanded and became a stimulus to domestic trade. Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were produced. Many books were printed using movable type. The imperial palace in Beijing's Forbidden City reached its current splendor. It was also during these centuries that the potential of south China came to be fully exploited. New crops were widely cultivated and industries such as those producing porcelain and textiles flourished.

In 1449 Esen Tayisi led an Oirat Mongol invasion of northern China which culminated in the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor at Tumu. Since then, the Ming became on the defensive on the northern frontier, which led to the Ming Great Wall being built. Most of what remains of the Great Wall of China today was either built or repaired by the Ming. The brick and granite work was enlarged, the watchtowers were redesigned, and cannons were placed along its length.

At sea, the Ming became increasingly isolationist after the death of the Yongle Emperor. The treasure voyages which sailed Indian Ocean were discontinued, and the maritime prohibition laws were set in place banning the Chinese from sailing abroad. European traders who reached China in the midst of the Age of Discovery were repeatedly rebuked in their requests for trade, with the Portuguese being repulsed by the Ming navy at Tuen Mun in 1521 and again in 1522. Domestic and foreign demands for overseas trade, deemed illegal by the state, led to widespread wokou piracy attacking the southeastern coastline during the rule of the Jiajing Emperor (1507-1567), which only subsided after the opening of ports in Guangdong and Fujian and much military suppression.  The Portuguese were allowed to settle in Macau in 1557 for trade, which remained in Portuguese hands until 1999. The Dutch entry into the Chinese seas was also met with fierce resistance, with the Dutch being chased off the Penghu islands in the Sino-Dutch conflicts of 1622–1624 and were forced to settle in Taiwan instead. The Dutch in Taiwan fought with the Ming in the Battle of Liaoluo Bay in 1633 and lost, and eventually surrendered to the Ming loyalist Koxinga in 1662, after the fall of the Ming dynasty.

In 1556, during the rule of the Jiajing Emperor, the Shaanxi earthquake killed about 830,000 people, the deadliest earthquake of all time.

Qing dynasty (AD 1644–1911)

Capitals: Shenyang, Beijing

The Qing dynasty (1644–1911) was the last imperial dynasty in China. Founded by the Manchus, it was the second conquest dynasty to rule  the entire territory of China and its people. The Manchus were formerly known as Jurchens, residing in the northeastern part of the Ming territory outside the Great Wall. They emerged as the major threat to the late Ming dynasty after Nurhaci united all Jurchen tribes and established an independent state. However, the Ming dynasty would be overthrown by Li Zicheng's peasants rebellion, with Beijing captured in 1644 and the Chongzhen Emperor, the last Ming emperor, committing suicide. The Manchus allied with the former Ming general Wu Sangui to seize Beijing, which was made the capital of the Qing dynasty, and then proceeded to subdue the Ming remnants in the south. The decades of Manchu conquest caused enormous loss of lives and the economic scale of China shrank drastically. In total, the Qing conquest of the Ming (1618–1683) cost as many as 25 million lives.  Nevertheless, the Manchus adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government in their rule and were considered a Chinese dynasty.

The Manchus enforced a 'queue order,' forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the Manchu queue hairstyle. Officials were required to wear Manchu-style clothing Changshan (bannermen dress and Tangzhuang), but ordinary Han civilians were allowed to wear traditional Han clothing, or Hanfu. Most Han then voluntarily shifted to wearing Qipao anyway. The Kangxi Emperor ordered the creation of the Kangxi Dictionary, the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters that had been compiled. The Qing dynasty set up the Eight Banners system that provided the basic framework for the Qing military organization. Bannermen could not undertake trade or manual labor; they had to petition to be removed from banner status. They were considered a form of nobility and were given preferential treatment in terms of annual pensions, land, and allotments of cloth.

Over the next half-century, all areas previously under the Ming dynasty were consolidated under the Qing. Xinjiang, Tibet, and Mongolia were also formally incorporated into Chinese territory. Between 1673 and 1681, the Kangxi Emperor suppressed the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, an uprising of three generals in Southern China who had been denied hereditary rule of large fiefdoms granted by the previous emperor. In 1683, the Qing staged an amphibious assault on southern Taiwan, bringing down the rebel Kingdom of Tungning, which was founded by the Ming loyalist Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) in 1662 after the fall of the Southern Ming, and had served as a base for continued Ming resistance in Southern China. The Qing defeated the Russians at Albazin, resulting in the Treaty of Nerchinsk.

By the end of Qianlong Emperor's long reign, the Qing Empire was at its zenith. China ruled more than one-third of the world's population, and had the largest economy in the world. By area it was one of the largest empires ever.

In the 19th century the empire was internally stagnant and externally threatened by western powers. The defeat by the British Empire in the First Opium War (1840) led to the Treaty of Nanking (1842), under which Hong Kong was ceded to Britain and importation of opium (produced by British Empire territories) was allowed. Subsequent military defeats and unequal treaties with other western powers continued even after the fall of the Qing dynasty.

Internally the Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864), a quasi-Christian religious movement led by the "Heavenly King" Hong Xiuquan, raided roughly a third of Chinese territory for over a decade until they were finally crushed in the Third Battle of Nanking in 1864. This was one of the largest wars in the 19th century in terms of troop involvement; there was massive loss of life, with a death toll of about 20 million.  A string of civil disturbances followed, including the Punti–Hakka Clan Wars, Nian Rebellion, Dungan Revolt, and Panthay Rebellion.  All rebellions were ultimately put down, but at enormous cost and with many casualties, seriously weakening the central imperial authority. The Banner system that the Manchus had relied upon for so long failed: Banner forces were unable to suppress the rebels, and the government called upon local officials in the provinces, who raised "New Armies", which successfully crushed the challenges to Qing authority. China never rebuilt a strong central army, and many local officials became warlords who used military power to effectively rule independently in their provinces. 

 
In response to calamities within the empire and threats from imperialism, the Self-Strengthening Movement was an institutional reform in the second half of the 1800s. The aim was to modernize the empire, with prime emphasis on strengthening the military. However, the reform was undermined by corrupt officials, cynicism, and quarrels within the imperial family. As a result, the "Beiyang Fleet" were soundly defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). The Guangxu Emperor and the reformists then launched a more comprehensive reform effort, the Hundred Days' Reform (1898), but it was soon overturned by the conservatives under Empress Dowager Cixi in a military coup.

At the turn of the 20th century, the violent Boxer Rebellion opposed foreign influence in Northern China, and attacked Chinese Christians and missionaries. When Boxers entered Beijing, the Qing government ordered all foreigners to leave. But instead the foreigners and many Chinese were besieged in the foreign legations quarter. The Eight-Nation Alliance sent the Seymour Expedition of Japanese, Russian, Italian, German, French, American, and Austrian troops to relieve the siege. The Expedition was stopped by the Boxers at the Battle of Langfang and forced to retreat. Due to the Alliance's attack on the Dagu Forts, the Qing government in response sided with the Boxers and declared war on the Alliance. There was fierce fighting at Tientsin. The Alliance formed the second, much larger Gaselee Expedition and finally reached Beijing; the Qing government evacuated to Xi'an. The Boxer Protocol ended the war.

Republic and People's Republic of China 

Republic of China (1912–1949)

Capitals: Nanjing, Beijing, Chongqing, several short-lived wartime capitals, Taipei 

Frustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform and by China's weakness, young officials, military officers, and students began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the creation of a republic. They were inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen. A revolutionary military uprising, the Wuchang Uprising, began on 10 October 1911, in Wuhan. The provisional government of the Republic of China was formed in Nanjing on 12 March 1912. The Xinhai Revolution ended 2,000 years of dynastic rule in China.

After the success of the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, Sun Yat-sen was declared President, but Sun was forced to turn power over to Yuan Shikai, who commanded the New Army and was Prime Minister under the Qing government, as part of the agreement to let the last Qing monarch abdicate (a decision Sun would later regret). Over the next few years, Yuan proceeded to abolish the national and provincial assemblies, and declared himself emperor in late 1915. Yuan's imperial ambitions were fiercely opposed by his subordinates; faced with the prospect of rebellion, he abdicated in March 1916, and died in June of that year.

Yuan's death in 1916 left a power vacuum in China; the republican government was all but shattered. This ushered in the Warlord Era, during which much of the country was ruled by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.

In 1919, the May Fourth Movement began as a response to the terms imposed on China by the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I, but quickly became a nationwide protest movement about the domestic situation in China. The protests were a moral success as the cabinet fell and China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which had awarded German holdings to Japan. The New Culture Movement stimulated by the May Fourth Movement waxed strong throughout the 1920s and 1930s. According to Ebrey:
"Nationalism, patriotism, progress, science, democracy, and freedom were the goals; imperialism, feudalism, warlordism, autocracy, patriarchy, and blind adherence to tradition were the enemies. Intellectuals struggled with how to be strong and modern and yet Chinese, how to preserve China as a political entity in the world of competing nations." 

The discrediting of liberal Western philosophy amongst leftist Chinese intellectuals led to more radical lines of thought inspired by the Russian Revolution, and supported by agents of the Comintern sent to China by Moscow. This created the seeds for the irreconcilable conflict between the left and right in China that would dominate Chinese history for the rest of the century.

In the 1920s, Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary base in south China, and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With assistance from the Soviet Union (themselves fresh from a socialist uprising), he entered into an alliance with the fledgling Communist Party of China. After Sun's death from cancer in 1925, one of his protégés, Chiang Kai-shek, seized control of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party or KMT) and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule in a military campaign known as the Northern Expedition (1926–1927). Having defeated the warlords in south and central China by military force, Chiang was able to secure the nominal allegiance of the warlords in the North. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CPC and relentlessly chased the CPC armies and its leaders from their bases in southern and eastern China. In 1934, driven from their mountain bases such as the Chinese Soviet Republic, the CPC forces embarked on the Long March across China's most desolate terrain to the northwest, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan'an in Shaanxi Province. During the Long March, the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung).

The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CPC continued, openly or clandestinely, through the 14-year-long Japanese occupation of various parts of the country (1931–1945). The two Chinese parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese in 1937, during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), which became a part of World War II. Japanese forces committed numerous war atrocities against the civilian population, including biological warfare (see Unit 731) and the Three Alls Policy (Sankō Sakusen), the three alls being: "Kill All, Burn All and Loot All". 

Following the defeat of Japan in 1945, the war between the Nationalist government forces and the CPC resumed, after failed attempts at reconciliation and a negotiated settlement. By 1949, the CPC had established control over most of the country (see Chinese Civil War). Westad says the Communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang, and because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Furthermore, his party was weakened in the war against the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Communists told different groups, such as peasants, exactly what they wanted to hear, and cloaked themselves in the cover of Chinese Nationalism.  During the civil war both the Nationalists and Communists carried out mass atrocities, with millions of non-combatants killed by both sides.  These included deaths from forced conscription and massacres.  When the Nationalist government forces were defeated by CPC forces in mainland China in 1949, the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan with its forces, along with Chiang and most of the KMT leadership and a large number of their supporters; the Nationalist government had taken effective control of Taiwan at the end of WWII as part of the overall Japanese surrender, when Japanese troops in Taiwan surrendered to Republic of China troops. 

People's Republic of China (since 1949)

Major combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 with Kuomintang (KMT) pulling out of the mainland, with the government relocating to Taipei and maintaining control only over a few islands. The Communist Party of China was left in control of mainland China. On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China.  "Communist China" and "Red China" were two common names for the PRC. 

The PRC was shaped by a series of campaigns and five-year plans. The economic and social plan known as the Great Leap Forward caused an estimated 45 million deaths.  Mao's government carried out mass executions of landowners, instituted collectivisation and implemented the Laogai camp system. Execution, deaths from forced labor and other atrocities resulted in millions of deaths under Mao. In 1966 Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, which continued until Mao's death a decade later. The Cultural Revolution, motivated by power struggles within the Party and a fear of the Soviet Union, led to a major upheaval in Chinese society.

In 1972, at the peak of the Sino-Soviet split, Mao and Zhou Enlai met US president Richard Nixon in Beijing to establish relations with the United States. In the same year, the PRC was admitted to the United Nations in place of the Republic of China, with permanent membership of the Security Council.

A power struggle followed Mao's death in 1976. The Gang of Four were arrested and blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, marking the end of a turbulent political era in China. Deng Xiaoping outmaneuvered Mao's anointed successor chairman Hua Guofeng, and gradually emerged as the de facto leader over the next few years.

Deng Xiaoping was the Paramount Leader of China from 1978 to 1992, although he never became the head of the party or state, and his influence within the Party led the country to significant economic reforms. The Communist Party subsequently loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives and the communes were disbanded with many peasants receiving multiple land leases, which greatly increased incentives and agricultural production. This turn of events marked China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment, a system termed by some  as "market socialism", and officially by the Communist Party of China as "Socialism with Chinese characteristics". The PRC adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982.

In 1989 the death of former general secretary Hu Yaobang helped to spark the Tiananmen Square protests of that year, during which students and others campaigned for several months, speaking out against corruption and in favour of greater political reform, including democratic rights and freedom of speech. However, they were eventually put down on 4 June when PLA troops and vehicles entered and forcibly cleared the square, with many fatalities. This event was widely reported, and brought worldwide condemnation and sanctions against the government.   A filmed incident involving the "tank man" was seen worldwide.

CPC general secretary and PRC President Jiang Zemin and PRC Premier Zhu Rongji, both former mayors of Shanghai, led post-Tiananmen PRC in the 1990s. Under Jiang and Zhu's ten years of administration, the PRC's economic performance pulled an estimated 150 million peasants out of poverty and sustained an average annual gross domestic product growth rate of 11.2%.   The country formally joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Although the PRC needs economic growth to spur its development, the government began to worry that rapid economic growth was degrading the country's resources and environment. Another concern is that certain sectors of society are not sufficiently benefiting from the PRC's economic development; one example of this is the wide gap between urban and rural areas. As a result, under former CPC general secretary and President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, the PRC initiated policies to address issues of equitable distribution of resources, but the outcome was not known .  More than 40 million farmers were displaced from their land,  usually for economic development, contributing to 87,000 demonstrations and riots across China in 2005.  For much of the PRC's population, living standards improved very substantially and freedom increased, but political controls remained tight and rural areas poor.
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