I've been pondering the question: what makes chinese civlization unique and why was it the longest suriving ancient civilization in the world ?

According to most chinese history texts, there are 4 great ancient civilization:

1. Egyptian (based on niles river civilization)
2. Mesopotamia (based on Tigris and Euphrates civilization)
3. Indian (based on Indus Valley civilization)
4. China (based on Yellow River civilization)

However, Egyptian, Mesopotamia and Indian have all disappeared.

The egyptians had been conquered by Greeks, Persians, Arabs and its language and culture had all been destroyed by these invaders such that today's egyptian culture is not egyptian but arab. Mesopotamia (Sumerians, Babylons, Assyrians etc) are the same, they were conquered by Persians and later the Arabs and today's "Mesopotamian" had been displaced by Arabs. The Indians (Indus) were also conquered by Aryans from Caucasia who settled in north and the culture owas Indus was lost.

Only chinese civilization is the longest continuous surviving civilization dating from ancient times, despite the fact that China had been conquered by northern nomads as well as other 'foreign' invaders such as Mongols and Manchus.

After attending a course on chinese history, I've learnt a number of factors that make chinese civilization unique, contributing to its continuity:


1. Geographical Factor

China has great territorial land for developing its own culture and civilization. It was considered 'isolated' from the rest of other civilization b'cos in the west, you have gobi desert in the western region, which prevented other civilization to easily invade China. Also you have tibetan plateau and himalaya which formed the best wall of defence from Indian's or Alexander's invasion. In the east, there is the pacific ocean. Under such geographical conditions and being 'isolated', it was able to develop its own civilization

2. Chinese are agriculture and farming-based

Unlike nomads, chinese are farmers who usually settled down permanently in a land and develop its own production for food or artisan. Because of settlement, an advanced social and political system was necessary to help govern. This accelerated chinese civilization. Because of productivity, the population of chinese also increased rapidly making the civilization strong. They also do not, unlike nomads, who roam about hunting for food or be 'disappeared' in other civilization.

Chinese, unlike the nomads, were not warriors-based, but were farmers-based.


3. Chinese learnt cavalry warfare from nomads to fight against nomads

It has been described that while the chinese were civilized with the nomads being barbarians, the chinese were also like sheep as compared to nomads who are the wolves. Chinese army, being recruited from peasants and farmers, used to be infantry based. This has a clear disadvantage when fighting against mounted warriors of the steppe. To counter this, chinese learnt cavalry from the nomads and used it to fight against nomads.

4. Acculturation and Sinification nature of chinese culture

When nomads such as Xianbei, Mongols, Manchus conquered China, instead of them using the nomads way to rule China, they were forced to use the han-chinese way to rule China. This makes them gradually become sinificized (esp. the Xianbei, Manchus). Remember, the chinese were farmers and to rule China, you cannot use 'warrior' and nomadic way to rule China. Otherwise, the regime will have problems. This accounted for why chinese culture and civilization was not destroyed.

Does anyone have other reasons to explain why China is longest surviving civilization? What accounts for its continuity?

(Any comments and contribution are appreciated)

I think your sinification argument explains it perfectly. Chinese culture has constantly evolved over the past millenia, there is no single definition for what Chinese culture really is. It has incorporated, integrated, acculturated, absorbed, and assimilated most of the people around her. In a way, even when China loses (EG being conquered by nomadic invaders), she wins thanks to Sinification.

More Sinification than anything else..simply when people conquer China, they become Chinese.

And vice versa, though there are some exceptions.

Don't make it seem like Chinese were conquered by foreigners all the time

Why do people say that the Indian civilization is no longer existing?

From where I see it, it is alive and well.

Their Religion and cast system exist even today.

You're right...but then again since the people who were invading are now Chinese...it was a war between brothers so therefore China was actually never conquered...


What about the Persians, Arabs, and Greeks? I've always felt that they are up there with the first four...

I suppose this grouping merged Persians and the Arabs into the Meso group.

However, the Aigean civilization, while drew a lot of influences from the Egyptians and the Mesos were still earlier than the Chinese civilization, not to mention among one of the most influencial in present day world.

They're referring to the Indus River Valley Civilization which died out 3,500 yrs ago. The people who built the cities left, no one knows what happened to them and no one can read their language. The Indian people today were immigrants from Iran and Central Asia who probably arrived after the Indus River Valley Civilization had gone. It's possible the Hindu religion may have roots from those Indus River people, but no one really knows.

Wow, that's really interesting! I thought that the ancient people of the Indus River Valley wrote in Sanskrit. It's amazing to know that there's an ancient undeciphered language that could hold the key to a whole civilization's history!

Kind of off topic, but does anyone know how old current academics believe the Indus River Valley Civilization is? Which cities and great monuments are the ones they've left? I've heard some think it may be older than even the Mesopotamian civilizations...

Yeah it is very interesting. They were the first to build cities with indoor plumbing, their mudwork was quite intricate. And for a short-lived civilization, their colonies spread over a very large area. Not just the Indus River as previously supposed but all over northern India. Check out how much territory they covered in just a few centuries of history.



Unfortunatly they didn't seem to make a lasting impact much like the Mayans.

For Further Study

Another reason of why chinese remain the longest surviving is that most chinese stayed permanently in a place for a long time, instead of migrating somewhere else, unlike the nomads. This caused the population to remain large, instead of decreasing. As said, they were farmers and farming requires them to stay long as they could.

The chinese also had advanced agriculture to increase food supply to support a large population.

The Jewish people have a similarly long history, but unlike other people they had to preserve their culture for the very most time WITHOUT a protecting state. Big achievement, if you ask me.

Also, depending on definition of course, Egyptian culture is roughly as old as Chinese: 3000 BC to 500 CE, if we take the usage of hieroglyphs and demotic into account: 3500 years.

About cultural continuity:
Last year, I was in Egypt. I was surprised to hear that people were actually refering to themselves as "Egypts, not Arabs".

Also note, that Egyptian Coptes (10% of population) are the direct ancestors of the old Egyptians. They were not islamized. In terms of bloodline they probably have more direct and older links to their ancestors than most of the other people, Chinese included.

Quite an achievement, but think also of the blood shed throughout the persecutions. Quite ironically, persecutions tend to drive the persecuted towards their core identity rather than losing it.

Think of the many Europeans today whose ancestors until recent the last century before had been Christians.

And also the Chinese christian converts whose forefathers had followed traditional Chinese beliefs.

Maybe there are lots and lots of lost knowledge in all those thousands of years. It will be great if we can rediscover them.

I think the combination of assimilation and security make the Chinese culture the only ancient civilisation to survive unbroken until modern times. The other ancient civilsations have been overrun and had their cultures supressed by the victors, China is hard to overrun and when it happens they assimilate the invaders.

I think the answer is very simple.

The nomad culture couldn't assimilate another city culture unless the enviroment favors them.

The nomad also invaded Europe, however they left no mark there as well.

For all the other major cultures, they are all so close to each other. However, for China, the vastness of the desert protected them, leaving the nomads as the only power strong enough to threaten it for most of the history.

If the Chinese culture was based anywhere else on the Euro-Asian land mass, it would have been assimilated by others very quickly.

The nomads left a ton of stories to tell, lots of dead people, and gunpowder.

They left a mark, but not of the cultural kind I guess.

What about the Magyars in Hungary and the Finns?? And are you certain there are no Mongoloid traits in the Steppe Russians??

I always believe that the Chinese continued to flourish because of 2 factors:

a. Their high population. Throughout history, Han China has been the most or one of the most populous civilisation. So, even if the invaders or mother nature had killed off 50% of the population, there would still be a large number to continue the civilisation. If the Han Chinese had been a small tribe like say, Krygyz, then the Han culture could have been assimilated or totally obliterated during the period between the Eastern Han and Sui dynasties, or during the Mongol or Manchu invasion. So, all of you should do more activities at night. Nothing to be ashamed of, you are perpetuating a noble civilisation.

b. Their obsession with their history and culture. Like all of us here (from all over the globe) sharing our opinions in this forum, the Chinese people are naturally inquisitive about their origin, ancestry and people of their same race and culture. This factor held them together. It gave them the ability to distinguish between what is Chinese and what is foreign. Just take a look at the numerous posts about whether Genghis Khan was Chinese in this forum. So, all of you should do more homework on Chinese history (I should too).

To above:

We are talking about culturely. In the two cases you mentioned, the nomads that stayed actually got assimilated into the local population just as they would in China.

I guess culture includes languages spoken. Hmmm.....if the nomads were totally assimiliated, and left no mark, why are both Hungarian and Finnish non Indo-European languages, unlike the great majority of other European languages?? So, if all or the great majority of people in China today speak a Tungusic, or Turkic language, we should still conclude that the nomads actually got assimiliated into the Han Chinese culture???

In fact the nomads also altered the Han language. Not just the pronounciation but also the grammar. However, their culture, such as beliefs, ritual practices and such did not survive the assimilation.

I read somewhere that the Mongols gave China the 'gift' of shame. Previously the Chinese had been a 'sex positive' society where sex was open and enjoyed, but the Mongols introduced prudishness and changed China into a 'sex negative' society where sex is hidden and considered bad. Now I'm not sure if this is true, its not the sort of history that's easy to find, but it may be where the Mongols left their mark on China.

Not true. Song dynasty was the first that really came down harsh on sex. Unless the Mongol it talked about was refering to other nomad tribes that ruled China before Song dynasty.

Who said China is the "longest surviving civilisation"?

I'm sorry to sound radical and "politically incorrect", but I say this claim is a lie. Let us think about it more deeply. When one says "China is the longest surviving civilisation" one is implicitly saying "Chinese civilisation has 'survived' while others have not". But is this really the case? In what sense, I would like to ask, can one claim that the Chinese civilisation has survived while say the Greco-Roman civilisation has not? If you take a stroll in the city of Rome, you will find a huge amount of art and architecture that dates back to the classical period. Can you find a similar amount of artistic treasures from the Han and Tang Dynasties in Xi'an? I think not. The Colossuem is still standing after more than 2000 years, where is the great Weiyang Palace of the Han Dynasty or the Daming Palace of the Tang Dynasty in Chang An? Indeed, where is the city of Chang An? In Xi'an most buildings you will find would be the same boring modern-style concrete blocks, the same goes for almost every other "historical" city in China. Even the ancient buildings in Chinese cities from Ming and Qing times that have survived have been to a large extent mutilated by communist party-sponsored "restoration programmes" so that all the ancient beauty and soul of the buildings have been killed. Chang An was once upon a time one of the most important cities in human civilisation, a glorious and beautiful metropolis that rivaled Rome. Where is the "surviving" evidence of this historical greatness? In fact, we don't need to compare with the Mediterrean, even Chinese-style architecture in Korean and Japan have survived better than Chinese-style architecture in China itself. In Japan there are still many unmistakably Tang Chinese-style buildings, but virtually no Tang-style building survive in China at all. Indeed, even some of the ancient technologies used by Chinese craftsmen have been completely lost. Tang Dynasty craftsmen painted a coat of protective chemicals over the Buddhist statues near Luoyang, but modern Chinese craftsmen no longer understand their composition and have to resort to analysing them with X-rays and other modern techniques.

At the "grass-root" level of popular culture, (e.g. Chinese cuisine. If you think cuisine is all there is to "civilisation" then I have nothing further to say) Chinese civilisation perhaps has survived to some extent. But we have suffered very considerable loses in our High Culture, in the fields of art, literature and philosophy. Are there still active Chinese philosophers around who analyse the world based on a Chinese philosophical framework? As far as I know there are none, the last few truly Chinese philosophers, like Xiong Shili, were tortured and killed during the Cultural Revolution. In fact, forget about "lofty" disciplines like philosophy, even our own ethnic clothing, Hanfu, has been lost. Many Chinese people today probably don't even know it ever existed.

The idea that "China is the only surviving ancient civilisation" is, like the claim "China has a history of 5000 years", (strictly speaking we only have a history of 4000 years, going back to nearly 2000 BC, for it was at that time that a complex civilisation, with bronze technology, centralised politico-religious system and a true written script first emerged which then developed into the distinctively Chinese civilisation) something only we Chinese recognise. If you ask native Greek people, for example, they would claim they have a cultural continuity dating back to the Hellenic era as well.

Chinese people have the tendency to have the "spirit of Ah-Q". By insisting that we have "the longest surviving civilisation" we acquire a kind of "ideological comfort" from this idea, as if somehow this makes us more special or even superior. But in the interest of truth it is time to break this illusion.

Chinese people tend to be optimistic, but sometimes we are blindly optimistic, even when there are hard depressing facts staring at our faces, we simply choose, often subconsciously, to ignore them and "carry on smiling", so to speak. IMHO this denial of facts is definitely not a virtue.

You should add quite a few other ancient cultures, such as the Greeks and the Persians, to this list of "ancient civilisations". The Greek civilisation is still very much alive today, and even in Iran, which has been conquered by the Muslim Arabs during China's Tang Dynasty more than 1000 years ago, there are still people attempting to overthrow the current Islamic regime and restore the pre-Islamic Persian civilisation.

Civilisations are not like individual lives, they are much more durable than you think. IMHO no ancient civilisation is simply "dead" the way an individual human being might be "simply dead".

and if you don't think cuisine is all there is to civilization, I have nothing to say to you.

Of course I don't think "cuisine is all there is to civilisation". I find it very hard to believe how any thinking person can seriously believe this.

It's not everything, but you made it sound like it was unimportant.

Sorry if I did not make myself clear. Of course cuisine is an important (not to mention tasty ) part of Chinese culture, but on the other hand I don't want it to eclipse the importance of other cultural elements. Some ignorant westerners, it seems, have a stereotype that Chinese culture is all about cuisine. I remember one of my teachers once joked: "The sweet-and-sour pork, that is the Chinese contribution to the world."

You don't sound politically incorrect, in fact the other side is politically incorrect.

Before the CCP, it was common among Chinese scholars to talk about roughly 3000 years of Chinese civilization. But the CCP prolonged Chinese history out of propaganda reasons for another 2000 years, even going to pains to 'interpret' archaeology results to support their theory. Most Western scholars don't follow them until today. Sadly, this very forum contributes with its subtitle to the misconception of 5000 years. Most Chinese have catched up the slogan, too.

History is a most complex area of research and there are no easy answers, but the 5000 year claim can justly go down alongside the urban myth that Al Gore invented the Internet.

It's not just the CCP. ROC is in it as well. In fact I think the whole myth was greated at the end of Qing to make Han people, notice, not Chinese people, just Han people to feel better.

nonsense, Mongols kept their identity through the Yuan and most of them fled back to Mongolia when Ming was established

Qidan escaped Sinicization for the most part as well

despite Manchu adoption of Chinese culture (btw, they influenced Han culture just as much), they still retain a seperate ethnic identity (8 million Manchus today)

by the way, the concept of Da Zhong Hua (in which all inhabitants of China are Chinese) is a Manchu concept

probably 'cause they weren't ethnic Han. How many Manchurians speak Manchurian now though? I'd say, by now, they've been assimilated. The Mongols created the Yuan dynasty to assimilate themselves into Chinese culture, and one of the reasons they were eventually driven out is their assimilation dulled their fighting edge.

No, they are driven out becuase of their racist policies.

That too. I said "one of the reasons", not "the only reason"

Actually according to more recent research, it should be close to 4000 years, not 3000.

There were complex neolithic cultures in what is now geographically China before 2000 BC, but in the strictest sense these are not "Chinese".

I think there has been a lot of archeological evidence about the Shang dynasty in the ROC era.

Some recent discoveries also proved some of the legendary Xia. However, I don't have links. I only read that from the newspaper some day.

In any case Shang is already 4000 years.

Actually the Shang Dynasty only dates back to at most the 17th-18th centuries BC, (depending on which timeline one follows) which is not quite 4000 years. But the Xia Dynasty is not completely legendary. Bronzewares, for example, have been found at sites which according to Chinese historical accounts were cities of the Xia Dynasty, and they have the same basic artistic style as later Shang and Zhou bronzewares. The only thing missing is conclusive written evidence explicitly stating the existence of the Xia Dynasty, even though some evidence of a written script that dates back to the Xia has already been found. But the Shang Chinese written script was already highly developed, so it couldn't have suddenly emerged out of the blue, there must have been predecessors to it. But if the earliest Chinese logographs were written on perishable materials (unlike bones and shell during the Shang), then no physical evidence of them would have survived anyhow.

That is quite right, the bronze culture you refer to I presume is the 'Erlitou culture' whose bronze vessels are very finely made and pre-date Shang. (around 21-18th century BC if I recall).
I have never taken this as evidence of 'XIa' however...although some point to it the lack of written record is a problem.
XIa have many explanations....some even say they were more contemporary to Shang, just as Zhou might exist comtemporary but in another cultural area....they may be real or they may be not.
Certainly the are cultures found in the south outside of SHang that show there were other bronze cultures too. The Sanxingdui-site in Sichuan is one famous example.

As for the ancient characters it is quite true that Shang must have inhereted both bronze casting and probably characters from earlier examples.
The earliest example I have are the neolithic Banpo cultures ceramic vessels with cahracters on them theorised as a prototype for meaning (this is uncertain however)..the later neolithic culture has been found to have character inscribed on bone which more fit the concept of writing, however those I have seen pictures of are not recognisable as linked to modern CHinese like the oracle bones of Shang.
I dont know if the LongShan characters are translatable, or even if there is total agreement even if they are characters.

Yeah, 5,000 years is a bit of a stretch when I think about it as the Chinese were neolithic then....so can't claim much in different to most other neolithic races at the time. (Apart from the SUmerians, who really take 1st place for ancient 'civilisation' in 3,000BC..cities, writing, metal, merchantry, central authority etc.).

"No, they are driven out becuase of their racist policies. "

No, they were driven out because of their poor economic policy and their negligence of the wellfare of the commons as well as the heavy taxation and the support of the landownders. The initial revolt had nothing to do with mongols and everything to do with the opression by the large landholders.

RE: Why did China survive

I have another theory. China survived for two reasons, Confucianism and the invention of printing.

Confucianism is a political theory with religious zeal. It is distinctive in that regard compared with other great ideas. Because Confuciansim lends legitimacy to rulers, it's in the interest of rulers to propagate this belief. The ideas of the Confucian state is also fairly specific. The Confucian Classics worked almost like a form of the US Constitution in that it codified values and defined institutions from Emperors to the farmer.

Christianity and Islam also had some of this quality, hence their longitivity. Remember after the fall of the Western Roman Empire efforts were made to restore it under the Holy Roman Empire. But this effort was less successful in Europe than China. Which brings me to my second point: printing.

Printing in China was invented in the 11th Century, compared with the 15th Century in Europe. It's my theory that should a society survive into the era of mass printing, it's survival is insured.

Look at the Abbisid Arabs. The Mongols threw all their handwritten texts into the river and their civilization never recovered. Had the Mongols did the same to Confucian books it wouldn't have mattered at all due to mass publication.

If you look at Europe during the Rennaissance, I think with Christianity and printing their culture finally grew deep roots. Had the Roman Empire discovered printing, it too might have had a longer life.

Yup that's about sums it up.

Actually, block printing was invented in China during the 8th century (Tang dynasty).

I believe China's culture had kept Chinese united. This includes Chinese philosophies, and so on. With such a unique, and beautiful culture, I would only think it would attract cultural identity.

I myself is proud of Chinese culture. And I feel I have a connection with many others who have the same feeling.

Language(Writing, Verbal, reading.) is very important also. You cannot be unified, and strong to stand thousands of years without communication with each other.

I say it's the unique writing system, 100% all the way.

Most other civilisations used a alphabetic script, which could be easily replaced by another alphabet when a conquering power comes along and establishes themselves. But Chinese script is impossible to replace, because it's at the other end of the spectrum to alphabetic script. It would be far too complex for any foreign governing power to try and change it, so they won't. The complexity of the script also means that it's difficult for it to be diffused across other civilisations - to take the Chinese script, you must also take all the trappings of Chinese culture with you. As a result, Chinese script and civilisation has never been too far apart. This leads to a self-contained culture.

I think it's this aspect of Chinese culture which has given it continuity - as writing also strongly shapes how language develops. Because China never had a centralised religion, people look to history as their source of reference and inspiration. China has a cultural tendency to look back upon the past - it's not because Chinese people LIKE looking on the past, but because it's an integral aspect of Chinese culture and language.

You can tell alot about the roots a certain culture from the common phrases it's people use. English, with it's Christian roots, is replete with language like "God", "Evil", "Morality", "Wickedness", "Sin" - even in it's modern incarnation. In Arabic, people call on Allah all the time as a form of exclamation, whether good or bad. In China, you have endless proverbs that make references to historical people situations; used as metaphors.

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Ironmouse, good point. Never thought of it that way.

Indeed, the Greco-Roman civilization has not survived. Their writing, buildings, and philosophies may have survived, but their culture has not. The best that can be said for the Greeks and the Romans is that they heavily influenced the civilizations that replaced them. However, the rise of Christianity was the death knell of their civilization.




The idea of China as the longest surviving civilization is or the only surviving anciant civilization is, in fact, accepted by the rest of the world. The Greeks take pride in the influence their ancient civilization has had in influencing Western culture and thought, but they do not claim to have a continuous civilization dating back to classical times.

Ironmouse, thanks for spelling out that idea! It makes alot of sense. It's not quite new, but it's like... we all have the puzzle pieces, and you began to put them together. Looking at the language and phrases, smart!

Actually, if you go to Greece, they do claim to date back continously to classical times. Rightly so I think. Their culture is much the same as it was in classical times except for the changes wrought by the christian religion over their original religion. This would be similar to the changes in culture in China with the introduction of Taoism or more relevantly Buddhism.

The greeks still speak and write pretty much the same language and use the same names they did 2000-3000 years ago. They too can claim to have a continuous civilisation dating back thousands of years. They are the only other civilisation other than the Chinese that can. They too like China, also suffered conquest by other cultures like by the Romans etc, but remained true to their civilisation, sufficient to see the continuity.

But they are not older than China's. Before the 700 BCE, the dark ages of Greek history, the culture, people, and civilization are much different than what came after. The introduction of Christanity dramatically altered the Greek society, much more so than Taoism or Buddhism, and rightly so, since Christanity is a much more dominating religion. (Many Christans don't even considered Taoism and Buddhism to be religions.) Their names also changed, most notably by the addition of a middle name and a last name. And finally if civilization is just language and alpahbets, than Jews can also claim to be a civilization that lasted 2000-3000 years.