| A | B |
|---|
| Chang Jiang | also known as the Yangzi River |
| Huang He | also known as the Yellow River |
| mandate of heaven | idea that heaven chose China's ruler |
| Great Wall | a barrier that linked earlier walls near China's northern border |
| Zhou | longest dynasty |
| Qin | shortest dynasty |
| Shi Huangdi | first emperor |
| sundial | device that uses the sun to tell time |
| seismograph | device that measures the strength of earthquakes |
| acupuncture | practice of inserting needles through the skin to treat illness or pain |
| Liu Bang | this peasant became an emperor of the Han dynasty |
| Wudi | this emperor made Confucianism the official government philosophy |
| Confucianism | teaches the importance of ethics and moral values |
| innovation | a new idea, method, or device |
| pictograph | a character that is a drawing of the word it represents |
| ideograph | a character that is a drawing of an idea a word represents |
| radicals | small drawings that are used to make up characters in Chinese |
| Silk Road | a long trade route that stretched across the heart of Asia |
| feudalism | government in which land is given to local rulers in exchange for loyalty and military service |
| vassals | people granted land in return for services |
| filial obedience | a child obeying his or her parents |
| merchants | bought and sold goods; lowest social class under Confucianism |
| Grand Canal | manmade waterway that linked northern and southern China |
| porcelain | a thin type of pottery |
| woodblock printing | a form of printing in which an entire page is carved into a block |
| movable type | type of printing in which carved letters could be rearranged and reused to print different messages |
| gunpowder | mixture of powders used in guns and explosives |
| compass | uses the Earth's magnetic field to show direction |
| bureaucracy | a body of unelected government officials |
| civil service | service as a government official |
| scholar-official | an educated member of the government |
| function | work or perform |
| Neo-Confucianism | taught proper behavior as well as emphasized spiritual matters |
| incentive | something that leads people to follow a certain course of action |
| Genghis Khan | organized the Mongols into a powerful army |
| Kublai Khan | an emperor of the Yuan dynasty |
| Yuan | a dynasty ruled by the Mongols |
| Marco Polo | an Italian merchant who served in Kublai Khan's court and wrote about his experiences |
| Beijing | capital of China |
| Zheng He | led grand sea voyages during the Ming dynasty |
| diplomacy | negotiating without causing hostility |
| tribute | payment to a ruler or nation by another |
| Forbidden City | huge palace complex that common people were not allowed to enter |
| isolationism | policy of avoiding contact with other countries |
| consequences | effects of a particular event or events |
| Empress Wu | a female ruler of China |
| dynasty | series of rulers from the same family line |
| one-child policy | modern government policy that limits the number of children a family may have |
| People's Republic of China | China's modern name |
| epitaph | a brief poem or other writing in praise of a deceased (dead) person |
| monopoly | complete control by one group of a product or service |
| sericulture | silk farming |
| oppression | when authority or power is used in a cruel or unjust way |
| cultural bias | when people have a particular way of looking at something based on their upbringing in their society |
| unify | to bring or combine together; to become one |
| communism | an economic system where wealth is distributed equally to everybody |
| capitalism | an economic system where everybody competes to make money |
| primary source | an artifact, document, or other source of information that was created at the time under study; if created by a person, then the person had direct knowledge of the events being described |
