Three thousand years, one province.
75
entries
10
eras
44
places
Henan is where a great deal of Chinese history happened first: farming villages, bronze capitals, the earliest writing, cave temples, the Song court. This page puts those events on one line you can filter — and on one map you can pin them to.
75 entries
Prehistoricc. 7000–2000 BCE
5 entriesFarming villages, bone flutes and painted pottery along the Yellow River.
c. 7000 BCECultureJiahu bone flutes
贾湖骨笛
Flutes cut from crane bones, still playable, were buried with the dead at Jiahu near Wuyang — some of the oldest tuned instruments anywhere.
c. 5000 BCESitesYangshao village gives a culture its name
仰韶村：一个文化的命名地
Painted pottery and settled villages excavated at Yangshao in 1921 defined the first Neolithic culture named in China.
c. 4500 BCECultureShell dragons at Xishuipo
西水坡蚌塑龙虎
A burial lined with dragon and tiger figures made of clam shells, arranged around the dead with the cardinal points marked.
c. 1750 BCESitesErlitou and the search for the Xia capital
二里头与夏都之争
A palace complex, bronze workshops and a road grid at Erlitou near Yanshi; many scholars identify it with a Xia capital.
Xia & Shangc. 2070–1046 BCE
6 entriesBronze casting, oracle bones and the first walled capitals.
c. 1600 BCESitesThe Shang walled city under Zhengzhou
郑州商城
A rammed-earth wall seven kilometres around, with bronze foundries inside, sits under the modern city centre.
c. 1300 BCESitesYinxu: the last Shang capital
殷墟：商代晚期都城
Palaces, royal tombs and more than a hundred thousand oracle bones, inscribed with the earliest mature Chinese writing.
c. 1250 BCEPeopleFu Hao, general and consort
妇好：王后与统帅
Her undisturbed tomb held bronze weapons, jade and sixteen sacrificed people; oracle bones record her leading armies of thousands.
c. 1100 BCESitesChaoge, the last Shang court
朝歌：商末都城
The Shang court moved to Chaoge near today's Qi County; the name survives in the stories of the fall of the dynasty.
c. 1100 BCEThe king held at Youli
羑里演易
The Zhou leader was imprisoned at Youli by the last Shang king and, by tradition, worked out the hexagrams there.
c. 1027 BCEPeopleBi Gan and the first loyal remonstrance
比干与忠谏
A Shang prince who warned the king and was killed for it; his tomb temple at Weihui is still visited.
Zhou1046–256 BCE
11 entriesFeudal states, philosophers and the earliest classics.
1046 BCEThe battle of Muye
牧野之战
Zhou forces met the Shang army in the plain north of the Yellow River; the dynasty changed hands in a single day.
c. 1040 BCEDividing the realm at Shanzhou
分陕而治
The dukes of Zhou and Shao split the new kingdom at a marker in Shanzhou — the origin of the phrase for dividing duties.
c. 1000 BCESitesThe Ying state cemetery
应国墓地
Bronzes from a small Zhou vassal state, including vessels that record royal gift-giving, were excavated west of Pingdingshan.
c. 1000 BCESitesThe Shang descendants at Song
宋国故城
The Zhou enfeoffed the Shang royal line at Song, around today's Shangqiu; the city wall is still traceable.
770 BCESitesZheng and Han capitals side by side
郑韩故城
Two states built their capitals on the same ground at Xinzheng; bronze and bone workshops lay between the walls.
c. 700 BCEChu moves north to Danyang
楚始都丹阳
The rising state of Chu pushed into the Dan River valley; its early capital is placed near Xichuan by most historians.
c. 500 BCEConfucius asks about rites in Luoyi
孔子入周问礼
The young teacher travelled to the Zhou capital to study ceremony and music, a meeting later carved and painted many times.
c. 500 BCEPeopleQu Boyu, the official who knew when to stop
蘧伯玉与知止
A Wei minister praised by Confucius for correcting himself; his birthplace is claimed by Changyuan.
c. 500 BCEPeopleFan Li retires to trade
范蠡归隐经商
After helping Yue defeat Wu, he left court and became a merchant; later tradition links his origins to the Wan area.
Qin & Han221 BCE–220 CE
10 entriesEmpires, roads, paper and the arrival of Buddhism.
c. 230 BCEPeopleLi Si and the unified script
李斯与书同文
A chancellor of Qin, born in Shangcai, who pushed standard weights, measures and a single writing system.
209 BCEThe snake at Mangdang
芒砀山斩蛇
A local magistrate's runner turned rebel after a night on Mangdang Mountain; the story became the founding legend of Han.
203 BCEThe Hong Canal truce
鸿沟之约
Chu and Han drew a line east and west of the canal near Xingyang; the word for an unbridgeable gap comes from here.
68 CECultureThe White Horse Temple
白马寺
Built for monks who arrived from the west with sutras on white horses, it is the oldest Buddhist temple in China.
c. 100 CEPeopleXu Shen defines the characters
许慎与《说文解字》
His dictionary, finished around 100 CE, sorted 9,353 characters by radical — the system still used today.
132 CEPeopleZhang Heng and the seismoscope
张衡与地动仪
A court astronomer from Nanyang who built a bronze vessel that dropped a ball when the ground shook elsewhere.
c. 190 CEPeopleCai Wenji returns with the music
蔡文姬归汉
Taken north in the wars, she came back years later and wrote down the scores her father had collected.
c. 200 CEPeopleZhang Zhongjing writes the clinical manual
张仲景与《伤寒杂病论》
A Nanyang physician whose book on fevers and internal illness set the pattern for two thousand years of practice.
200 CEThe battle of Guandu
官渡之战
A smaller force burned its rival's grain depot in the plain east of Luoyang and changed the balance of the late Han.
234 CESitesThe last Han emperor's tomb
汉献帝禅陵
After abdicating, the last Han ruler lived out his life as a regional lord and was buried near YunTai Mountain's foothills.
Wei, Jin & Six Dynasties220–589 CE
9 entriesWarring courts, scholars in groves and the first cave temples.
196 CEThe court moves to Xu
曹操迎帝都许
The emperor was brought to Xuchang, which became the political centre of the north for a generation.
207 CEThree visits to the thatched hut
三顾茅庐
A warlord called three times on a recluse in the Nanyang hills; the meeting set the strategy for a divided empire.
c. 230 CEPeopleZhong Yao and the running script
钟繇与楷书
A statesman from Changge whose brushwork is credited with shaping the regular script still taught today.
c. 240 CEPeopleSima Yi of Wen County
温县司马懿
A strategist born at Xiaojingli in Wen County whose descendants founded the Jin dynasty.
c. 250 CECultureThe Seven Sages in the bamboo
竹林七贤
Poets and drinkers gathered in the hills of Shanyang, refusing court office and inventing a style of learned withdrawal.
493 CECultureThe first grottoes at Longmen
龙门石窟开凿
When the Northern Wei court moved to Luoyang, carving began on the cliffs south of the city and continued for four centuries.
495 CECultureShaolin Temple founded
少林寺创建
Built on Song Mountain for an Indian monk; the martial tradition grew later, around the temple's land and its guards.
c. 500 CESitesThe small grottoes at Gongyi
巩义石窟
A compact Northern Wei site whose relief processions and flying figures are among the best preserved of the period.
c. 500 CECultureThe ballad of Mulan
木兰传说
A northern ballad about a daughter who takes her father's place in the army; Yucheng in eastern Henan keeps a temple to her.
Sui & Tang581–907 CE
9 entriesGranaries, canals and a capital that traded with the world.
584 CESitesXiaoshang Bridge
小商桥
An open-spandrel stone arch bridge on the old north–south road, older than the better-known bridge at Zhaozhou.
c. 600 CESitesThe temple to the Ji River
济渎庙
One of the four great river sacrifices of imperial China, laid out in Jiyuan where the Ji River was believed to rise.
602 CEPeopleXuanzang leaves from Henan
玄奘西行
Born near Yanshi, he walked to India and back, then translated what he carried for the rest of his life.
605 CEThe canal reaches Luoyang
大运河通洛
The Sui dug a water road linking the Yangtze to the capital; grain depots at Luoyang held what the empire ate.
690 CEPeopleWu Zetian makes Luoyang the divine capital
武则天与神都洛阳
The only woman to reign as emperor moved the court east, renamed Luoyang the divine capital and built on a vast scale.
712 CEPeopleDu Fu is born at Gongyi
杜甫生于巩义
The poet of the Tang collapse was born in a cave dwelling at Gongyi; his boyhood home is now a quiet museum.
768 CEPeopleHan Yu and the plain style
韩愈与古文运动
Born in Mengzhou, he argued for a return to plain classical prose and reset the tone of Chinese writing.
c. 780 CECultureTea from the Xinyang hills
信阳茶事
Tea was already a taxed trade here in the Tang; the same hills still produce the leaf known as Xinyang Maojian.
813 CEPeopleLi Shangyin of Huaizhou
李商隐与怀州
A late Tang poet of dense, elusive images, born in the Huaizhou area around today's Qinyang.
Song960–1279 CE
11 entriesPrinting, kilns, academies and a city of a million people.
960 CEKaifeng becomes the Song capital
北宋定都开封
A canal city without mountains became the largest urban centre on earth, with night markets and a print trade.
1000sSitesThe Northern Song imperial tombs
北宋皇陵
Seven emperors and their courts lie under fields and stone figures south of the Yellow River.
c. 1010 CECultureThe Yingtian Academy
应天书院
One of the four great Song academies, raised to national status and later staffed by officials who rewrote the exams.
1040sPeopleFan Zhongyan writes at Huazhou
范仲淹与花洲书院
Exiled to Dengzhou, he founded a academy and wrote the essay that begins 'worry before the world worries'.
1050sPeopleBao Zheng rules the capital
包拯知开封府
A stern official who opened the court's gates to petitioners; the opera face and the stories came later.
1050sCultureThe Cheng brothers teach at Songyang
二程与嵩阳书院
The academy below Song Mountain became a centre of the moral philosophy that shaped later imperial education.
1070sCultureScholars at the Baiquan springs
百泉书院
A spring-fed garden in Huixian hosted a academy where Song and later scholars taught beside the water.
1086 CECultureRu ware for the Song court
汝窑天青
A pale blue-green glaze produced for the palace for barely twenty years; fewer than a hundred pieces survive.
c. 1100 CECultureJun ware and its copper reds
钧瓷窑变
Potters at Yuzhou used copper in the glaze to get unpredictable purples and reds — the first such effects in the world.
1127 CEThe fall of Kaifeng
靖康之变
The northern Song court, its emperor and much of its art were taken north; the dynasty continued south of the Yangtze.
1130sPeopleYue Fei of Tangyin
岳飞与汤阴
A general from Tangyin who fought the Jin and was executed by his own court; his temple at the birthplace is a pilgrimage site.
Yuan1271–1368 CE
2 entriesObservatories, calendars and new trade routes.
1271 CESitesThe Nanyang prefectural office
南阳府衙
A Yuan-founded administrative compound, rebuilt through the Ming and Qing, showing how a prefecture governed.
1276 CEPeopleGuo Shoujing builds the observatory
郭守敬与观星台
A gnomon tower at Dengfeng measured the sun's shadow for a calendar that stayed in use for centuries.
Ming & Qing1368–1911 CE
6 entriesMerchant halls, temple fairs and crafts still practised today.
1600sCultureTaichi takes shape at Chenjiagou
陈家沟太极拳
The Chen family village codified a slow, rooted boxing style that later spread worldwide.
1600sCultureYuzhou becomes a medicine market
禹州药市
Growers and traders from across the country met here; the processing workshops still supply herbal pharmacies.
1600sCultureThe Xun County temple fair
浚县正月庙会
A month-long winter fair around two mountain temples, with drum teams, opera and pilgrimage processions.
1700sCultureThe Majie storytelling fair
马街书会
Every spring, singers and drum storytellers set up in a field near Baofeng to perform for anyone who stops.
1700sSitesThe Kang family estate at Gongyi
康百万庄园
A merchant clan built a fortified estate on the river road, with granaries, schools and its own water gate.
1800sCultureChangyuan trains the cooks
长垣厨乡
A county with poor soil sent its sons into professional kitchens; banquet cooking became its export.
Modern1912 – today
6 entriesRailways, war, water works and a province rebuilt.
1906The railway makes Zhengzhou
京汉铁路与郑州
A junction of two trunk lines turned a county town into the province's transport capital within a generation.
1931The base area at Xinxian
鄂豫皖苏区首府
A mountain county became the seat of a soviet government; its old streets and offices are preserved as a museum district.
1945The last battle in the west
西峡口战役
Fighting in the Funiu Mountain passes in the final year of the war, remembered in a small county museum.
1963PeopleJiao Yulu in Lankao
焦裕禄在兰考
A county secretary who worked on sand, salt and water for eighteen months before his death; the paulownia groves are his memorial.
1965The Red Flag Canal
红旗渠
Ten years of hand-cut channels brought water across the Taihang cliffs to Linzhou's dry fields.
2014Water leaves Danjiangkou
南水北调中线通水
The canal head at Xichuan sends water north to the capital; villages on the reservoir shore were moved to make room.