1. Geography & Culture Setting the Stage:
China’s first city walls were built 1000 years after the walls of Ur, the great pyramids, and the planned cities on the Indus River.
Unlike most cultures on earth, the civilization that began in China years ago still thrives there today.

2. Geography & Culture The Geography of China
Natural barriers isolated ancient China
East: The Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and Pacific Ocean
West: Taklimakan Desert and 15,000 ft Plateau of Tibet
Southwest: Himalayas
North: Gobi Desert and Mongolian Plateau
Mountain ranges and desert dominate 2/3 of China’s landmass

3. Geography & Culture River Systems Huang He (Yellow River) in the north
Deposits large amounts of yellowish silt called loess.
Loess is blown by winds from deserts into the river

4. Huang He (Yellow River)

5. Geography & Culture Environmental Challenges
Disastrous floods from the Huang He
Trade was difficult so settlers became self- dependent
Geography did not make invasion impossible

6. Geography & Culture Only 10% of China’s land is suitable for farming
Most of farmable land is on North China Plain between Yellow River and Yangtze

7. Geography & Culture The Development of Chinese Culture
Fossils show that modern humans lived in SW China 1.7 million years ago
According to legend, the first Chinese dynasty, The Xia Dynasty, started about 2000 B.C.
Chinese viewed everyone outside of their culture as barbarians
Viewed themselves as center of civilized world
Chinese name for China was Middle Kingdom
Family is central to Chinese society; respect for one’s parents
Women treated as inferiors
Girls were arranged to be married between 13 and 16

8. Geography & Culture
Religion: Spirits of ancestors had power to bring good fortune; not seen as gods
Use of Oracle Bones- priests scratch question on bones, apply hot poker, bone would split, interpret the cracks

9. Geography & Culture No links between spoken and written language
One could read Chinese without being able to speak the language
All parts of China learned the same system of writing even if spoke different language thus unifying parts of China
Needed to know 1500 characters just to be considered literate; scholars knew 10,000 characters

10. Geography & Culture Zhou and the Dynastic Cycle
1027 B.C. a people called the Zhou overthrew the Shang, culturally similar
Zhou believed in Mandate of Heaven or divine approval to rule
Mandate of Heaven became central to Chinese view of government
This helped explain the dynastic cycle: a pattern of rise, decline, and replacement of dynasties if the spirits did not approve of one king’s rule

11. Mandate of Heaven

12. Geography & Culture Zhou and the Dynastic Cycle
The use of royal families controlling different regions was known as feudalism
Zhou Dynasty innovated roads/canals, coined money, blast furnaces
The Zhou were generally peaceful
Later years of Zhou Dynasty known as warring states period due to weakened power of Zhou kings, attacking nomads and greedy lords

13. Warring States period

14. Geography & Culture
Result: China’s culture has been shaped by the geography surrounding it’s people. A highly evolved culture that began with the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties will become one of the world’s oldest. This unique people will be regularly disrupted by rise and fall of governments, that will later be known as the dynastic cycle. Our studies in this unit will focus on 5 of those dynasties: The Qin, The Han, The Tang, The Song, and the Yuan.