What year did the Tang dynasty begin?

What year did the Tang dynasty begin? The Tang dynasty began in 618. Li Yuan, a Sui military governor and aristocrat, declared himself Emperor Gaozu of Tang on June 18, 618, after the Sui emperor Yang was killed during widespread rebellions. The new dynasty gradually consolidated control over China and ended the short-lived Sui period.

The Tang ruled from 618 to 907, making it one of China’s longest and most influential imperial dynasties. Its capital at Chang’an became a huge cosmopolitan center connected to Central Asia, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the wider Silk Road. Tang rulers supported sophisticated administration, poetry, painting, Buddhism, international trade, and technological development.

The dynasty’s timeline has one important complication: Empress Wu Zetian established the Zhou interregnum from 690 to 705. Historians still date the Tang dynasty from 618 to 907 because Tang rule resumed after that interruption. The year 626 marks the beginning of Emperor Taizong’s reign, not the dynasty itself.