pre-Qin period

The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization was traditionally thought to have first emerged in the Yellow River or Huang He valley, which along with the Yangtze basin constitutes the geographic core of the Chinese cultural sphere. However, current views have considered the origin to be a simultaneous duality of both the Ye