Travel Reference
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History
Lion guarding the Gate of Heavenly Peace, Beijing (
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MANFRED GOTTSCHALK/GETTY IMAGES Beijing
The epic sweep of China's history paints perhaps a deceptive im-
pression of long epochs of peace periodically convulsed by break-
up, internecine division or external attack. Yet for much of its his-
tory China has been in conflict, either internally or with outsiders.
Although China's size and shape has also continuously changed -
from tiny beginnings by the Yellow River (Huang He) to the sub-
continent of today - an uninterrupted thread of history links its
earliest roots to the full flowering of Chinese civilisation.
