An old missionary student of China once remarked that Chinese history is “remote, monotonous, obscure, and-worst of all-there is too much of it.” China has the longest continuous history of any country in the world—3,500 years of written history.
San Marino is the oldest sovereign state in the world, having been founded in 301AD. But it's also one of the smallest – about 60 square kilometres (or 24 square miles).
China: 2100 BC
Amongst the oldest nations in the World, the next on the list is China as it has been known to exist for over 3500 years. The Shang Dynasty ruled in China in 17th century B.C to 11th century B.C. This is considered as the longest-ruling period for any dynasty.
Though the ancient Chinese rank high among the world's oldest civilisations (2000 BC), the development of a united China came almost 1100 years after the ancient Egyptians (3100 BC). Mesopotamia (4000 BC), Egypt (3100 BC) and the Indus Valley civilisations (3300 BC) all significantly pre-date ancient China.
By many accounts, the Republic of San Marino, one of the world's smallest countries, is also the world's oldest country. The tiny country that is completely landlocked by Italy was founded on September 3rd in the year 301 BCE.
Scholars generally acknowledge six cradles of civilization. Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, and Ancient China are believed to be the earliest in the Old World.
Although ancient Egypt and China never communicated with each other, they had many things in common. The exhibition "China and Egypt. Cradles of the World" shows inventions made in both countries a long time ago.
All existing archaeological evidence and studies from around the world support the conclusion that Egypt's ancient civilisation appeared far earlier than that of China's, despite the shared similarities.
1600-1050 B.C.: Shang Dynasty - The earliest ruling dynasty of China to be established in recorded history, the Shang was headed by a tribal chief named Tan. The Shang era is marked by intellectual advances in astronomy and math.
China was first united as a single state under Qin Shi Huang in 221 BCE. Orthography, weights, measures, and law were all standardized. Shortly thereafter, China entered its classical age with the Han dynasty (206 BCE – CE 220). During this period, the Chinese empire saw some of its farthest geographical control.
According to the ROA, it is hypothesized that populations of early modern Homo sapiens migrated from Africa and entered the southern part of China around 60,000 years ago; they then dispersed northward. They replaced totally the indigenous human beings and they are the unique ancestors of the modern Chinese.
The areas surrounding China's second-longest river were home to the oldest dynasties of ancient China, making the Huang He Valley the birthplace of Chinese civilization.
Roots of Chinese language
Most linguists classify all of the variations of spoken Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan family and believe that there was an original language, called Proto-Sino-Tibetan, similar to Proto Indo-European, from which the Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman languages descended.
Over the centuries, Zhongguo was at times used in diplomatic dispatches to foreign vassal states but the dynastic name was still the official one. The first time Zhongguo was used as the Chinese nation's official name was in the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689.
The 500-‐year Roman Empire was relatively short-‐lived compared to the 3,000 years of Chinese dynastic history.
The find suggests that modern humans reached China between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago.
1. Mesopotamia, 4000-3500 B.C. Meaning “between two rivers” in Greek, Mesopotamia (located in modern-day Iraq, Kuwait and Syria) is considered the birthplace of civilization.
Jericho, Palestine
A small city with a population of 20,000 people, Jericho, which is located in Palestine, is believed to be the oldest city in the world. Indeed, some of the earliest archeological evidence from the area dates back 11,000 years.
The concept of First World originated during the Cold War and comprised countries that were under the influence of the United States and the rest of NATO and opposed the Soviet Union and/or communism during the Cold War.