Cradle of China

Chronicle

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.

3 entries · Zhengzhou

Only showing Zhengzhou · 3 entries across 3 dynasties

Prehistoricc. 7000–2000 BCE

1 entries

Farming villages, bone flutes and painted pottery along the Yellow River.

  1. c. 7000 BCESites

    Peiligang: the first farming villages

    裴李岗：最早的农耕村落

    Millet farmers, stone sickles and the earliest pottery found in the region, dug out of a village site east of today's Xinzheng.

    XinzhengZhengzhou

Xia & Shangc. 2070–1046 BCE

1 entries

Bronze casting, oracle bones and the first walled capitals.

  1. c. 1600 BCESites

    The 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.

    Zhengzhou

Modern1912 – today

1 entries

Railways, war, water works and a province rebuilt.

  1. 1906Events

    The 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.

    Zhengzhou