Xia dynasty
the first hereditary dynasty recorded in the Chinese dynasties (ca. 2100 BCE--1916 BCE), house of Xiahou
The Xia dynasty (, SHEE-ah; Chinese: 夏朝; pinyin: Xiàcháo; Wade–Giles: Hsia Ch'ao) is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese historiography. Some scholars, especially Western historians and Sinologists, consider the Xia dynasty legendary or at least unsubstantiated, while a majority of Chinese archeologists consider it historical and identify it with the archaeological Erlitou culture (c. 1900–1500 BC). According to tradition, it was established by the likely legendary figure Yu the Great, after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors, gave the throne to him. In traditional historiography, the Xia dynasty was succeeded by the Shang dynasty.
There are no contemporaneous records of the Xia, and they are not mentioned in the oldest Chinese texts, the earliest oracle bone inscriptions dating from the Late Shang period (13th century BC). The earliest mentions occur in the oldest chapters of the Book of Documents, which report speeches from the early Western Zhou period and are accepted by most scholars as dating from that time. The speeches justify the Zhou conquest of the Shang as the passing of the Mandate of Heaven and liken it to the succession of the Xia by the Shang. That political philosophy was promoted by the Confucian school in the Eastern Zhou period. The succession of dynasties was incorporated into the Bamboo Annals and Shiji and became the official position of imperial historiography and ideology.
According to the traditional chronology, based upon calculations by Liu Xin, the Xia ruled between 2205 and 1766 BC. According to the chronology based on the "current text" Bamboo Annals, it ruled between 1989 and 1558 BC. Comparing the same text with dates of five-planet conjunctions, David Pankenier, supported by David Nivison, proposed dates of 1953 and 1555 BC. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project, commissioned by the Chinese government in 1996, proposed that the Xia existed between 2070 and 1600 BC.
Traditional historiography
The Xia dynasty was described in several Chinese classics, including the Book of Documents, the Bamboo Annals, and Sima Qian's Shiji.
The public source identifies “Xia dynasty” as the first hereditary dynasty recorded in the Chinese dynasties (ca. 2100 BCE--1916 BCE), house of Xiahou. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around dynasty, first and hereditary.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q169705. VIAF identifies the subject as 4215150325580810090008. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1500, 1766 and 1989.
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This entry incorporates text from “Xia dynasty” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.