Is it true that China is the only ancient civilization that continues to this day? Or is it only recognized by Chinese themselves?

中国真的是现存的唯一一个古代文明吗？是不是只有中国人这么认为？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

Anonymous

China is the youngest as well as surviving in the "cradle of civilization" group, let's see

1. Egypt did not use hieroglyphs and their dynasty was destroyed without continuity

2. Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley were destroyed (no one knows the translation of the Indus Valley writing)

3. Ancient American civilization was destroyed

中国是古代文明中最年轻的，也是在数个“文明摇篮”中存活下来的文明。

1. 埃及没有使用象形文字，他们的王朝被推番，没能延续至今

2. 美索不达米亚和印度河流域被摧毁了(没人知道印度河流域的文字该如何理解)

3. 古老的美洲文明被摧毁了

China has never been colonized by "another civilization" china was only colonized by barbarians (in the end it collapsed quickly and became part of china) different from Egypt, which was colonized by Greece, and Rome and Persia. and also chinese can still read their old script (still use it too)

also more importantly (very important): CHINA is a world power whereas greece, egypt, persia are not world powers.

中国从未被“其他文明”殖民过，中国只被野蛮民族殖民过（最终也倒台了，融入中国）。埃及不一样，埃及曾被希腊、罗马和波斯殖民过。中国人如今还能阅读他们的古文字(也依然在使用)。

更重要(事实上非常重要)的是：中国是世界强国，而希腊、埃及、波斯都不是世界强国。

C.J. Hsu

I personally believe the definition to “continues civilisation” is, that the language continues

A civilisation could be conquered by others, but itself will keep continuing if the language and the people continued thriving.

我个人认为“文明延续”的定义是语言的延续

一个文明也许会被其他文明征服，但如果它的语言和人民得以延续，这个文明就能延续下去。

The Chinese civilisation has a significant difference with other ones, that the language system has never been interrupted, with a very clearly traceable path of language evolution, and any educated young Chinese in high school can read poems and articles from 2500 years ago, if he or she has studied some calligraphy, characters from 3000 years ago or even oracle bones are of no problems.

中华文明和其他文明的显著不同之处在于，中国的语言体系从未中断过，语言演变的路径非常清晰，所有受过教育的中国高中生都可以阅读2500年前的诗歌和文章，如果他或她曾学过书法，那么3000年前的汉字甚至甲骨文都不在话下。

(evolution of “horse”, “fish”, and “carriage”, or “car” for modern purposes)

(“马”、“鱼”、“马车”或现代意义上的“汽车”的字形演变)

China

native religion continues

native language continues

native culture continues, and for thousands of years Chinese are still live with ancestor worship/veneration

(Even race still continues)

中国

本土宗教延续至今

母语延续至今

本土文化延续至今，几千年来中国人仍然会祭祀祖先

(种族也得以延续至今)

Other major native civilisations have already lost their own stuffs:

而其他主要文明都已失去了自己的文化：

Egypt - arabized

religion & language & culture are no more

埃及-阿拉伯化

古埃及的宗教、语言和文化都不复存在了

Indus - aryanized & arabized

language & culture are no more, only native religion continues

印度-雅利安化&阿拉伯化

古印度的语言和文化不复存在，只有本土宗教得以延续

Sumer/Assyria - arabized

language & culture are no more, Zoroastrianism is almost dead

苏美尔/亚述-阿拉伯化

古亚述的语言和文化都不复存在了，琐罗亚斯德教几乎绝迹

Aztec - eliminated

阿兹特克-不复存在

Maya - eliminated

玛雅-不复存在

Inca – eliminated

印加-不复存在

Geng Yang

The original question has two parts. Most of the answers only focus on the first part, the statement is true or not is debatable among academic people, which I am not an expert anyway.

For the second part, the answer is one google away. It’s clearly not only recognized by Chinese. It’s written on the American History Association Website. In a pamphlets published by US in 1944:

“China has the longest continuous history of any country in the world—3,500 years of written history. And even 3,500 years ago China’s civilization was old! “

这个问题有两个部分。大多数评论只关注第一部分，这个说法是真是假，在学术界是有争议的，我也不是专家。

对于第二部分，答案可以搜索一下。很显然，这个说法并非只有中国人认可。美国历史协会的网站上就是这么写的。1944年美国出版的一本小册子中写到：

“中国拥有世界上最长的绵延不断的历史——3500年有文字记载的历史。而在3500年前，中国也拥有古老的文明！”

Alexander Tan

Related

Why was China, the oldest exsting civilization, never wiped out like all the other ancient civilizations?

I will address each part point by point:

China is not the oldest civilization: Preceding it were the Sumerians (including the other Mesopotamian empires), the Indus Valley, as well as Egypt.

None of those civilizations were “wiped out”. The Assyrians still exst, as do the Dravidians (they were thought to have founded the Indus Valley), as do Egyptians.

为什么中国这个现存最古老的文明，没有像其他古文明一样被消灭呢？

我会对每一部分进行逐一阐述：

中国并不是最古老的文明：在它之前出现了苏美尔人(包括其他美索不达米亚帝国)、印度河流域以及埃及。

这些文明并没有被“消灭”。亚述人繁衍至今，德拉威人（人们认为他们建立了印度河流域）和埃及人也是如此。

However, under the assumption that you mean oldest exsting civilization as the longest continually lasting native culture, and the for a civilization to be wiped out is to have its culture drastically changed by foreign powers, then this is why:

但假设你指的是现存最古老的文明、也是持续时间最长的本土文化，那么一个文明被消灭的原因就在于它的文化被外国势力彻底改变，原因如下：

First let’s talk about the three older civilizations (I will just refer to as Sumer, Egypt, and Indus). Sumer lost native Mesopotamian culture to the Persians, followed by the Greek Macedonian Empire, followed by the Arabs of who completely Islamized the region, followed by the Turks, and then finally divided between Britain and France in Iraq and Syria (I think Iraq was British). Egypt is a similar story: native culture lost to Persians, then Greeks, then Romans, then Arabs, then Turks, then the British. The Indus is much more straight forward: civilization and culture in India had to practically restart after the mysterious disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization, the Vedic civilization would not exst until the mid/late ia dynasty of China.

首先我们先谈谈三个更为古老的文明(我只举苏美尔、埃及和印度河文明为例)。

苏美尔的美索不达米亚文化败给了波斯人，接着又接连被希腊马其顿帝国和阿拉伯统治，阿拉伯人将该地区完全伊 斯兰化，后来土耳其人接手，最后被英国和法国分割成伊拉克和叙利亚(我认为伊拉克是英国的)。

埃及的情况也类似：本土文化因为被波斯人、希腊人、罗马人、阿拉伯人、土耳其人、英国人轮番统治而遗失了。

印度河流域则更直接：印度河流域文明神秘消失后，印度的文明和文化不得不重新开始，一直到中国夏朝中后期才出现吠陀文明。

Next, let’s talk about Chinese cultural change; only two foreign powers ever truly conquered China: the Mongols, and the Manchus. However, then the Manchu Qing dynasty invaded the ailing Ming dynasty, the Manchus were already heavily under Chinese Cultural Influence, as the Ming Dynasty expanded far north into Manchuria, subjugating Manchus into their rule, thus Manchu rule of China did not change Chinese culture significantly (it changed, yes, but not nearly as much as the Caliphate conquering Egypt). The next is the Mongols. The epic tales of great battle between the Chinese and the northern horse nomads (Mongols) originated before the Qin dynasty, when the Great Wall was under construction to keep the Mongols out. All this war and negotiation between China and Mongolia which took place for a good millennia and a half before the Mongol Conquest allowed for great cultural exchange between China and Mongolia (Mostly from China to Mongolia, as China is often considered to have civilized much earlier than the Mongols). When the Mongols invaded, same story; Chinese culture was not changed drastically.

接下来，我们来谈谈中国的文化变迁；中国历史上只有两个势力真正征服过中国：蒙古族和满族。

但因为明朝将版图向北扩张到了满洲，满族人曾经屈服于明朝的统治，所以当满清王朝入侵风雨飘摇的明朝时，满族人早已深受中国文化的影响，因此满族入主中原后并没有显著改变中国文化（确实有一些改变，但远远不及哈里发征服埃及带去的彻底改变）。

另一个是蒙古族。中国和北方游牧民族(蒙古人)之间的历史恩怨源于秦朝之前，当时中国建造长城抵御蒙古人。在蒙古征服中原之前，中国和蒙古之间打打、谈谈，持续了1500年，因此中国和蒙古之间进行了大量的文化交流(主要是中国文化传播到了蒙古，因为人们普遍认为中原比蒙古更早开化)。所以当蒙古人入侵时，中国文化同样没有发生翻天覆地的变化。

Other reasons why foreign influence in China is more limited than other ancient civs is geographical. China was surrounded by the Gobi Desert and the Tiban plateau, preventing invaders from the West and South. The Pacific is to the East, preventing eastern invasion.  neighbors were and are Mongolia, Tib, Manchuria, Dzungaria (Dzungar Mongols), Korea, Japan, Yuenan (Vietnam), and Siam, all of which were heavily sinicised culturally, thus unable to significantly change Chinese culture. The closest great civilization to China is India, but they were separated by the Himalayas and Tib, making cultural exchange difficult (not impossible, as exemplified in Buddhism).

跟其他古代文明相比，中国受外国影响更为有限的另一个原因出于地理。中国被戈壁沙漠和青藏高原所环绕，阻止了西方和南方的入侵者。太平洋位于中国东面，也阻止了东方的入侵者。周边从古自今都是蒙古、xz、满洲、准噶尔（准噶尔蒙古）、朝鲜、日本、越南和暹罗，这些地区在文化上都高度中国化，因此无力影响中国文化。与中国最接近的伟大文明是印度，但两者被喜马拉雅山脉隔开，文化交流十分困难(但也并非不可能，佛教就是个例子)。

Zhihan Liao

I will define the ancient civilizations as Egypt, Rome, Mesopotamia, and China.

Starting with the (Ancient) Egyptians, they’re not really a distinct ethnic group anymore. Although there are still people in Egypt who speak Coptic, the latest stage of the ancient Egyptian language, they’re not ethnically distinct from Muslim Egyptians, only they practice Christianity. The Ancient Egyptians have merged with the Arab Egyptians, so now there is not an Ancient Egyptian ethnicity anymore but an Egyptian ethnicity with part Ancient Egyptian ancestry. In addition, Ancient Egypt doesn’t exst anymore and the civilization was displaced by Arabs. So, Ancient Egypt hasn’t continued to this day.

我把古代文明定义为埃及、罗马、美索不达米亚和中国。

从(古)埃及人开始，他们现在已经不是一个纯粹的民族了。尽管埃及仍有人说科普特语，这是古埃及语言的最新演变，但他们与埃及人并没有种族上的区别，只是他们信仰的是基督教而已。古埃及人已经与阿拉伯埃及人融合，所以现在古埃及民族已不复存在，只剩下拥有部分古埃及血统的埃及民族。此外，古埃及也已不复存在，古埃及文明被阿拉伯人取代。所以古埃及没能延续到今天。

Rome also doesn’t exst anymore. Unlike the Egyptians, the people actually survived and went on to become distinct ethnicities, such as the Spanish, Italians, French, etc. while still maintaining their distinct language, like the Egyptians. However, the civilization of Rome split between the Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire. The west was defeated, and although the east survived for many more centuries their civilization was also ended. So, Roman civilization has not survived to this day.

罗马文明也不复存在了。和埃及人不同的是，罗马人幸存了下来，并继续演化成了不同的民族，如西班牙人、意大利人、法国人等，仍然保持着他们特有的语言，就像埃及人一样。但罗马文明分裂成了西罗马帝国和东罗马帝国。西罗马帝国被打败了，东罗马帝国延续了许多世纪，但最终他们的文明也结束了。所以，罗马文明也没能延续到今天。

Mesopotamia has historically not been one civilization, but rather many civilizations such as the Akkadians, Sumerians, Babylonians, etc. However, their civilizations also don’t exst anymore, instead, there is modern-day Iraq which is an Arab country. So it is safe to say that ancient Mesopotamian civilization has all but disappeared, and most ancient Mesopotamians have also disappeared, except for the Assyrians, who don’t really have a country. Alternatively, though, since Mesopotamia has not been one civilization but rather many of them, you can technically call Iraq the current Mesopotamian civilization, which makes Mesopotamian civilization still intact. However, since you asked about ancient civilization, well, they don’t exst anymore. There’s only Iraq.

美索不达米亚在历史上并不是单个文明，而是多个文明的集合，如阿卡德人，苏美尔人，巴比伦人等。可惜他们的文明都不复存在了，取而代之的是现代的伊拉克，一个阿拉伯国家。所以可以说，古美索不达米亚文明几乎消失了，大多数古美索不达米亚人也消失了，除了亚述人，他们并没有真正的国家。另外，由于美索不达米亚不是单个文明，而是许多文明，你可以把伊拉克称为当今的美索不达米亚文明，让美索不达米亚文明得以维系。但你问的是古代文明，所以古美索不达米亚文明已经不复存在。如今只留下了伊拉克。

Lastly, China. The question gets a little complicated here, because China as a civilization has remained very much alive, even through different dynasties. However, if you consider different dynasties “civilizations,” the ia dynasty does not exst anymore. So, if you consider the civilization as the people who lived there and made countries and survived to this day, China has survived. If you mean civilization as “the first country/dynasty to exst on Chinese territory,” no, the ia dynasty has ended almost 3,600 years ago.

最后，中国。这个问题有点复杂，因为中国虽然经历了各朝各代，但作为一个文明仍然非常活跃。可如果你针对的是不同朝代的“文明”，那么夏朝的文明已经不存在了。所以，如果你把文明等同于生活在该地区的人，建立起国家并存在至今，那么中国确实绵延传承下来了。如果你认为文明是“中国境内出现的第一个国家/王朝”，那夏朝在大约3600年前就结束了。

Girish Raut

Not true - no civilization has been preserved in its entirety.

But there are 2 civilizations that have their ancient writing systems, languages, religion etc preserved to a large extent. And that’s the world biggest populations - India & China.

不是这样的——古文明都没能完整地保存下来。

但是有两个文明在很大程度上保存了古老的文字、语言、宗教等。那就是世界上人口最多的国家——印度和中国。

“India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grand mother of tradition”

― Mark Twain.

“印度是人类的摇篮，是人类语言的发源地，是历史的母亲，是神话传说的祖母，更是文化传统的曾祖母"

——马克·吐温

India Conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.

—Hu Shih, Chinese Ambassador

印度不费一兵一卒，就在文化上控制并支配中国逾两千年。

——中国驻华大使胡适