This era of relative stability and prosperity was born from strife. By the fifth century B.C., the Zhou kingdom had split into many different states, some of them walled. For almost 200 years, from 403 to 221 B.C., these kingdoms fought for dominance, a time known as the Period of the Warring States. Finally, one state, the Qin in northwest China, took control. The scattered states were united for the first time and the Qin, or Ch'in, dynasty gave China its name.

Liu Pang, a former peasant who led a successful revolt, became the first Han emperor in 206 B.C. The Han dynasty would endure for more than 400 years. It combined the Qin tradition of strong, centralized rule with a Confucian approach to public service.

The Han brought stability to China. This was due in part to the smooth functioning of their huge bureaucracy, numbering about 130,000 civil servants as the first century A.D. began.

At the top were the emperor, his three main advisors, and his nine ministers, each in charge of a large department. The country was organized into roughly 80 provinces, each with its own governor, and the provinces were divided into prefectures. In A.D. 2 the country's 60 million inhabitants were organized into 1,587 of these, each of which maintained its own financial records.

During this period of peace and prosperity, agriculture, arts, and technology flourished. Most Chinese were farmers, growing wheat, millet, barley, and rice. Some were employed in the increasingly important silk business. Expanding trade routes, such as the Silk Road, carried their textiles as far as the Roman Empire.

Han craftsmen were the first to invent paper, making it from a blend of bark, hemp, and cloth. They also developed the ship's rudder, initiated the first accurate mapmaking techniques, and established that a year has 365.25 days. An ingenious Han inventor devised a seismograph that could point to an earthquake's center, and others invented the first magnetic compass and even the first wheelbarrow.

The Han empire expanded over the years. After taking over the areas now known as northern Vietnam and Korea and subduing the nomads to the north, the Han controlled huge areas of Asia. Religions and philosophies began to flow back and forth over the long borders. Confucianism traveled to Southeast Asia, and Buddhism spread from India into China. Merchants previously fearful of "barbarian" raids were able to venture farther on trade routes, and contact with Persian and Roman worlds increased.

Even more than other classical cultures, Chinese society was highly stratified. At the top was the emperor. Divinely ordained, he was an untouchable figure. His subjects could not write his name or speak to him directly. Those who behaved improperly in his presence could be executed.

Below the emperor were nobles and high-level officials who were granted land by the emperor, along with the right to collect taxes on it. Commoners were ranked according to educational level, from scholars to farmers, artisans, and merchants. At the bottom of the social ladder were slaves.

In 220 the last Han emperor abdicated in favor of a warlord's son, and the Han dynasty ended. China broke apart again into regional kingdoms and would not begin to return to its former glories until the Sui dynasty in the sixth century.