Ancient Chinese Numeral

System
by: Group 5

Bram Pineda @hih_alexei

Mary Therese Losaria @in_oblivionnn
Jessa Ann Silonga
Rose Ann Bastareche
Xzyrabelle Servento
INTRODUCTION &
HISTORY OF CHINA
 China (pinyin: Zhōngguó), officially the People's
Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state located
in East Asia.
 It is the world's most populous country, with a
population of over 1.35 billion.
 Zhōngguó means “Middle Kingdom” in Chinese
because China is bordered with a desert to the north,
mountains to the west, the Pacific Ocean to the east,
and rainforests to the south. Because of this, the
Chinese believed that they were in the middle of the
earth thus they called China “Middle Kingdom”
 China comes from the arabic word Sina which was
used by the explorers and traders from the west.
 It is governed by the Communist Party, with its seat
of government in the capital city of Beijing. It also
exercises jurisdiction over two mostly self-governing
special administrative regions: Hong Kong
(Xianggang) and Macau (Aomen).
 The PRC also claims Taiwan – which is controlled by
the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political
entity – as its 23rd province, a claim controversial
due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the
unresolved Chinese Civil War.
 Covering approximately 9.6 million square
kilometres, China is the world's second-
largest country by land area.
 China's landscape is vast and diverse,
ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi
and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to
subtropical forests in the wetter south.
 The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan
mountain ranges separate China from South
and Central Asia. The Yangtze (Changjiang) and
Yellow Rivers (Huang He), the third- and sixth-
longest in the world, run from the Tibetan
Plateau to the densely populated eastern
seaboard.
 China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is
14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long, and is
bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South
China Seas.
 Xia (ca 2100- ca 1600 BCE) Legendary
 Shang (ca 1700-1046 BCE) First Dynasty,
oracle bones
 Zhou (1046-256 BCE) Mandate of Heaven
 Spring and Autumn Period (722-476 BCE)
Peaceful period
 Warring States Period (476-221 BCE) Divided
China
 Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE) Teracotta and
Great Wall by Qin Shi Huang (First Emperor)
 Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 AD) Silk road,
Confucianism, Civil Service Exam, Han
Chinese, Buddhism was introduced from
India
 Wei and Jin Period (265-420)
 Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589)
Buddhism and Taoism as China’s religions
 Sui Dynasty (589-618) Standard coinage and
improvement of the Great Wall
 Tang Dynasty (618-907) Golden Age, Chang’an,
Equal Field System, Fubing Military Service System
 Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907-960)
 Song Dynasty (960-1279) Gunpowder
 Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) First foreign dynasty: the
Mongols
 Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Zheng He, world
exploration,
 Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)
 Republic of China (1912-1949)
 People's Republic of China (1949-present)
  PAPER
 PRINTING

 GUNPOWDER
 COMPASS
 Fermentation  Banknote
 Bell  Crossbow
 Coffin  Football
 Cookware and pottery vessel  Restaurants and Take-outs
 Dagger axe  Flamethrower
 Fork  Gunpowder
 Lacquer  Firecrackers, Fireworks
 Millet cultivation  Kite
 Noodles  Landmines
 Oar  Cannon
 Plow  Multi-stage rocket
 Rice Cultivation  Seismometer
 Sericulture  Printing press
 Terracing
 Acupuncture
 Zodiac

AND A LOT MORE!

• The Chinese invented a numeral
system and were adding,
subtracting, multiplying and
dividing at least 1,000 years
before anyone else with the use
of simple bamboo rods.
• The universal system using
numbers 1-9 – known as the
Hindu-Arabic system- had its
roots in the rod bundles used in
China (475 BC).
• Merchants, scholars, monks and
court officials carried these rods
(used them like calculators)
• The earliest Chinese treatise on
the rod numerals and
procedures for multiplication and
division- the sun zi suanjing- was
written 425 years earlier.
Numbers 1-9 (Ancient Chinese)
Bamboo Rods
Basic numbers in China