Qing Dynasty

• Dates: 1644-1911
• Chinese/Japanese: 清 (Qīng / Shin)

The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of Imperial China. Ruled by Manchu emperors, it began with the fall of the Ming Dynasty in 1644, and ended with the Xinhai Revolution in 1911. Though not a Han Chinese dynasty like the Ming which preceded it, due to its time, interactions with the West, and the overwhelming proportion of Qing period buildings, documents, and objects which have survived compared to those from earlier periods, it is the Qing which, perhaps, has most influenced or constituted the image of Imperial China, and of traditional Chinese culture; to name just a few examples of this phenomenon, Imperial dragon robes, men wearing their hair in queues, and men and women both wearing robes or dresses with off-center clasps (e.g. the cheongsam or qipao, commonly known in the West simply as a "Chinese dress") all derive from Manchu culture, and not from Ming or earlier "native" Chinese traditions.

Though nearly three hundred years in length, and seeing numerous considerable economic, political, social, and cultural developments over the course of those centuries, the Qing Dynasty is perhaps most strongly associated with the circumstances surrounding its decline and fall in the 19th to early 20th centuries, from the Opium War of the 1840s and the first of the Unequal Treaties which resulted, to the Taiping Rebellion of 1850-1864, failed attempts at reform and modernization, the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895-1896, the Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901, and the final fall of the dynasty in 1911.

Manchu Takeover

• origins before fall of Ming
• conquest
• cultural changes - queue, etc.
• governmental structures - exams, banners, ethnic division
• survival of the Ming / destruction of Ming loyalists

Arts & Culture

• Qianlong