What is the reason why China has a long history?

As we all know, among the four ancient civilizations in the world, the Chinese nation is the only one whose civilization has never been interrupted. The other three civilizations, ancient India, ancient Egypt and ancient Babylon, no matter how brilliant they were, have now been forgotten by history.

So why can Chinese civilization continue uninterrupted to this day?

First, the geographical location of China.

Chinese civilization can continue to this day. From the external reasons, it is due to the mutual influence and restriction of the relatively isolated mainland area, self-sufficient agricultural economic model and patriarchal social organization structure, forming a stable survival system.

First of all, east-west, located at the eastern end of Eurasia (world island). The sea is in the east and the land is in the west. Secondly, it is located in the north-south direction between grassland-desert and tropical jungle in the cold zone.

Generally speaking, China is not a thoroughfare, but relatively independent and self-sufficient. Therefore, Chinese civilization has remained relatively independent since its birth, and it is difficult to have close relations with other civilizations.

Secondly, China is located in the east of Asia and on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean. The land area is about 9.6 million square kilometers, the coastline of the eastern and southern continents is more than10.8 million kilometers, and the area of inland and coastal waters is about 4.7 million square kilometers. There are more than 7,600 large and small islands in the sea area, of which Taiwan Province Island is the largest, with an area of 35,798 square kilometers. So the geographical location determines that China can develop independently.

China is high in the west and low in the east. Mountains, plateaus and hills account for 67% of the land area, while basins and plains account for 33% of the land area. The mountains are mostly east-west and northeast-southwest, mainly Kunlun Mountain, Himalayan Mountain, Yinshan Mountain and Qinling Mountain.

There is the highest Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the world in the west, with an average elevation of more than 4,000 meters. It is called "the roof of the world", and Mount Everest is as high as 8844.86 meters, which is the highest peak in the world. Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Loess Plateau, Sichuan Basin and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in the north and east are the second steps of China's topography.

Daxinganling-Taihang Mountain-Wushan Mountain-Wuling Mountain-Xuefeng Mountain, the coastline is mostly plain hills from east to east, which is the third step of China. The continental shelf to the east and south of the coastline is rich in seabed resources. All these make China include all the geographical features of the world.

Relatively speaking, the living environment in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River is good, which is suitable for settlement and agricultural development, but it is not the most suitable climate zone (temperate zone, monsoon) for agricultural development. Under natural conditions like China, people have to work hard to get the harvest. The surrounding environment is harsh, especially in the northwest.

China's geographical position determines that China can develop independently and will not be invaded repeatedly for a long time. The topography of China determines that China can be self-sufficient and thrive.

Second, China's traditional culture has unique advantages and tenacious vitality.

In the world, China's traditional culture is one of the oldest in the world, but it is not the earliest. However, among the four ancient civilizations in the world, only China is an uninterrupted culture. After thousands of years of internal and external troubles, it has been preserved, continued and carried forward to this day.

Among the four ancient civilizations, Indian culture is Aryan, because the Aryans invaded; Greek and Roman culture was interrupted by Germanic invasion for thousands of years; Egyptian culture constantly changed its origin and appearance because of the changes of invaders. It used to be Hellenistic, then Romanized and then Islamized.

The race, writing and civilization in China have never been interrupted, but all the races, writing and civilization in other regions have disappeared except the Greeks.

Only China's culture is endless, showing an unparalleled life extension. China traditional culture itself contains diverse vitality, unified assimilation, inclusive integration, ethical affinity, changeable creativity and continuity of national historical consciousness, which constitutes the source of strong vitality of China culture.

In the continuation of strong vitality, China culture has shown strong assimilation and cohesion functions. China traditional culture is ethical culture, and ethics is its basic feature. Although this kind of ethics has a negative impact, some ethical concepts deeply rooted in China people's consciousness, such as respecting teachers and valuing morality, cultivating self-discipline, being pragmatic and enterprising, being diligent and thrifty, have undoubtedly played an important role in casting China people's ideological character of treating people with things, and have had a lasting impact.

The ethics of China's traditional culture creates a strong sense of identity and affinity. This sense of identity and affinity is reflected in the self-identity of cultural psychology and the sense of belonging of cultural groups that transcend regions and national boundaries. It enables overseas Chinese to have the same feelings as "blood is thicker than water" and "relatives are not relatives".

This shows that the thinking mode, value orientation, moral concept and code of conduct contained in China culture have a strong sense of identity and appeal. It has been passed down from generation to generation, restricting and influencing Chinese descendants all the time, and embodying the cultural cohesion of the Chinese nation.

The strong cohesion of the Chinese nation makes every member of this nation have a profound understanding and lofty sense of responsibility for the survival and development of their own nation and country, and inspires people to work hard and make selfless contributions to the prosperity of the national soul country.

Thirdly, China traditional culture has distinct subjectivity and powerful integration function.

In the course of its development, China traditional culture formed its own unique system earlier. Archaeological data prove that the traditional culture of China originated from ancient times. Our ancestors not only created Chinese characters and phonetic systems, but also created cultural and ideological systems such as philosophy, morality, religion, literature and art with square characters as the carrier. It has formed the unique customs and habits, national psychology and national spirit of the Chinese nation, and made China's traditional culture have distinctive features.

However, China culture is not a closed cultural system, but a "multi-integrated" culture, which has strong inclusiveness and mastery. When absorbing foreign cultures, the subject of China traditional culture has conscious initiative, not passively accepting, but actively influencing and transforming the object.

Historically, whenever a foreign culture enters China, most of them will gradually go to China and become a part of China culture. For example, Buddhist culture was introduced into China and reached its peak in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. After hundreds of years of transformation and absorption, Buddhism in China has been formed.

Moreover, the absorption and transformation of Buddhism by China's traditional culture goes far beyond the scope of religion, and widely penetrates into various fields of culture such as language and literature, philosophy, literature and art, astronomy, medicine, architecture and even folk customs.

The successful absorption of foreign cultures by China culture fully shows the openness, high toughness and good absorption and digestion ability of China traditional culture. And a distinct subjective consciousness, that is, taking me as the mainstay and eclectic.

Because of this, China culture is bound to show the characteristics of diversification. At the same time, the reason for this feature is also due to the complexity of blood components of the Chinese nation. As the predecessor of the Han nationality, Huaxia nationality was not developed from a single tribe, but formed in the process of the integration of many tribes. The integration of multi-ethnic cultures is also one of the important reasons for China's cultural diversity.

Four, China traditional culture has a lasting inheritance and positive innovation function.

After thousands of years' development, China traditional culture has gradually accumulated into a common psychological factor of the people, which regulates and dominates people's thoughts and behaviors. For example, in China's traditional concept, "harmony is precious" and "harmony" represents prosperity in China's traditional culture. Therefore, the concept of harmony has always played a great role in uniting the Chinese nation, thus maintaining the unity and integrity of the Chinese nation for thousands of years.

China traditional culture can keep pace with the times and develop innovatively. A cultural history of China is a history of cultural change and innovation. From the cultural transformation of Zhou people to Confucius' reinterpretation of Zhou Li: from Mencius' deepening and development of Confucius' thought to Xunzi's academic summary and integration of hundred schools of thought's contention in pre-Qin, it embodies the unity of continuity, transformation and innovation.

David chapman, a professor at Harvard University, summed up the core of China's fairy tales: the national characteristics of China. In his speech, he said: In the face of the same flood, what westerners can do is to hide in Noah's Ark and pray for God's salvation, while China people use Dayu to control the water, but they can't play house for three times.

In a word, looking back on China's 5,000-year history of civilization, all of us in China should be proud of it, and we hope that our only remaining ancient civilization will continue to prosper.