Yellow River to Yangtze, East Asia · Classical Era
Qin Dynasty
China's first unified imperial state
221 BCE – 206 BCE · 15 years
A short but transformative dynasty that first unified China under one emperor and one standardized administration.
Where it sits on the calendar
Government
Centralized empire
Writing system
Standardized Chinese script
Estimated peak population
20,000,000
How it ended
Internal political collapse
Traits
How Qin Dynasty ended
Rapid collapse into rebellion shortly after the First Emperor's death, despite the dynasty's short fifteen-year span.
See other civilizations that fell the same way →Notable for
- Standardization of script, currency, and measurements
- Earliest sections of the Great Wall
- Terracotta Army
Who else was alive at the same time
6 other civilizations in this dataset overlap with Qin Dynasty's 15-year span.
See every overlap involving Qin Dynasty →