SocietyEast Asia
The Han dynasty
China's four formative centuries — the people still call themselves Han
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The Han combined Qin's bureaucracy with Confucian legitimation — a formula that held for two thousand years. Sima Qian's *Shiji* established a historiography covering everything from emperors to merchants, which later dynasties continued in an unbroken line. The census of 2 CE reported fifty-seven million people, the oldest census whose figures we still hold.
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After the harsh Qin realm fell, the Han dynasty ruled China for four centuries. They introduced examinations for officials, opened the Silk Road and wrote China's first great history. Chinese still call themselves "the Han people".
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org