| China has one of the world's earliest civilizations, and the history of China dates back 5,000 years. As early as 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, people in the Yellow River valley had already started farming and raising livestock.
The Chinese have developed a strong sense of their real and mythological origins and have kept voluminous records since very early times. It is largely as a result of these records that knowledge concerning the ancient past, not only of China but also of its neighbors, has survived.
In 2000 B.C., China established a slave society with the founding of the Xia Dynasty, thereby writing a finale to long years of primitive society.
In 221 B.C., Qin Shihuang established China's first centralized autocracy, the Qin Dynasty, thereby ushering Chinese history into feudalism, which endured in a succession of dynasties until the Opium War of 1840.
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