Ming dynasty

Great Ming 大明
1368–1644
Ming China around 1580
Capital	Nanjing (Yingtian prefecture) (1368–1644)[a] Beijing (Shuntian prefecture) (1403–1644)[b][c]
Common languages	Official language: Mandarin Other Chinese languages Other languages: Turki (Modern Uyghur), Old Uyghur language, Tibetan, Mongolian, Jurchen, others
Religion	Heaven worship, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Chinese folk religion, Islam, Roman Catholicism
Government	Absolute monarchy
Emperor (皇帝)
• 1368–1398 (first)	Hongwu Emperor
• 1402-1424	Yongle Emperor
• 1627–1644 (last)	Chongzhen Emperor
Senior Grand Secretary
• 1402–1407	Xie Jin
• 1644	Wei Zaode
History
• Established in Nanjing	23 January 1368
• Beijing designated as capital	28 October 1420
• Fall of Beijing	25 April 1644
• End of the Southern Ming	1683
Area
1415[1]	6,500,000 km2 (2,500,000 sq mi)
Population
• 1393	65,000,000
• 1403	66,598,337¹
• 1500	125,000,000²
• 1600	160,000,000³
Currency	Paper money (1368–1450) Bimetallic: copper cashes (文, wén) in strings of coin and paper Silver taels (兩, liǎng) in sycees and by weight
Preceded by Succeeded by Yuan dynasty Shun dynasty Southern Ming dynasty
Today part of	Burma  China  Laos  Russia  Vietnam  North Korea
Remnants of the Ming dynasty ruled southern China until 1662, and Taiwan until 1683 a dynastic period which is known as the Southern Ming. ¹The numbers are based on estimates made by CJ Peers in Late Imperial Chinese Armies: 1520–1840 ²According to A. G. Frank, ReOrient: global economy in the Asian Age, 1998, p. 109 ³According to A. Maddison, The World Economy Volume 1: A Millennial Perspective Volume 2, 2007, p. 238

The Ming dynasty was the family of emperors who led China from AD 1368 to 1644. The name is also used to talk about the Ming Empire that they led and the 276 years in Chinese history that it lasted.

It is also famous for its pottery from Jingdezhen in Jiangxi and Dehua in Fujian.
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1. ↑ Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires" (PDF). Journal of World-systems Research. 12 (2): 219–29. doi:10.5195/jwsr.2006.369. ISSN 1076-156X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 February 2007. Retrieved 12 August 2010.