 | Term | Definition |
| |
loess |
Yellow soil in the Huang River Valley |
| |
dikes |
Walls built by early farmers along the Huang to protect their crops |
| |
bureacracy |
A government organized into different levels and tasks |
| |
animism |
belief that spirits inhabit everything |
| |
oracle bones |
Shoulder bones of a cattle or tortoise shells that priests wrote questions on |
| |
dialects |
Variations of the Chinese language |
| |
calligraphy |
Characters used for writing |
| |
autocracy |
The emperor has total power |
| |
civil service |
Runs the day-to-day business of a government |
| |
leveling |
Economic policy where the government used price controls to balance the economic effects of farm surpluses or shortages |
| |
yin |
Female force of the Chinese belief that everything in the world results from a balance between two forces;Dark, passive |
| |
yang |
Male force of the Chinese belief that everything in the world results from a balance between two forces;Bright, active |
| |
genealogy |
Record of ancestors in a family tree |
| |
acupuncture |
Therapy contributed to medicine from the Chinese |
| |
Xia |
A line of kings created by Yu, a mythological figure |
| |
Shang |
Established the first dynasty in China |
| |
Zhou |
Overthrew the Shang dynasty |
| |
Qin |
Created the first true empire of China |
| |
Han |
Dynasty of rulers that ruled a centralized and growing empire |
| |
Cheng |
Ruler who found the Qin dynasty |
| |
Great Wall of China |
Wall built and expanded upon by early rulers to protect from invasions |
| |
Liu Bang |
A commoner who became a Qin general and overthrew the empire, then founded the Han dynasty |
| |
Liu Ch'e |
The longest-ruling han emperor who helped Han rule over a larger area than the Roman EMpire |
| |
Silk Road |
Trade route stretching from China to the mediterranean |
| |
Confucius |
Leading philosopher |
| |
Analects |
Collection of the ideas and teachings of Confucius |
| |
Laozi |
Founder of the philosophy called Daoism |
| |
Dao De Jing |
Compilation of Laozi's teachings on Daoism |
| |
Legalism |
School of Chinese philosophy concerned with polotics |
| |
Five Classics |
Texts used to train scholars and civil servants in ancient China |
