Family research · Hub · Phase 18 of the world atlas

Flags of East Asia

Six countries, and some of the longest continuously documented state traditions anywhere in the atlas. Chinese dynastic history stretches back millennia, through the Qin unification of 221 BCE, the Han, Tang, Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties, and the fall of imperial rule in 1911–12; the Chinese Civil War between the Nationalist Kuomintang and the Communist Party, fought from 1927 to 1949 with a wartime pause to resist Japan's 1937–45 invasion, ended with the Communist Party proclaiming the People's Republic of China on the mainland in October 1949 while the Republic of China's government relocated to the island of Taiwan. Taiwan's political status remains a live, disputed question today, with different governments and international actors holding different positions on it.

Korea's history as a single nation and government tradition goes back over a millennium, through the kingdoms of Goguryeo, Silla, and Goryeo and the five-century Joseon Dynasty, before Japan annexed the peninsula as a colony from 1910 to 1945. Japan's own history runs from an imperial line traditionally dated to 660 BCE (the world's oldest continuous hereditary monarchy by that traditional count) through centuries of shogunate rule, the Meiji Restoration's rapid modernization from 1868, and the Pacific War, which ended with the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a postwar American occupation that produced Japan's 1947 constitution. Mongolia's Genghis Khan built history's largest contiguous land empire in the thirteenth century, before centuries of Qing Chinese rule gave way to independence in 1921–24 as the world's second Communist state and, from 1990, a multi-party democracy.

At the close of World War II, Korea was divided along the 38th parallel into Soviet and American occupation zones; the 1950–53 Korean War that followed left two separate states on the peninsula, North Korea and South Korea, both of which endure today. Each country below has its own deep-dive flag lineage, linked from its card; the interactive map below shows all six territories changing hands on one shared timeline.

The 6 countries

10 flags · Qin to present China Millennia of dynastic rule from the Qin unification through the Qing, the 1911–12 fall of imperial China, and the People's Republic proclaimed in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War. 8 flags · Yamato to present Japan An imperial line traditionally dated to 660 BCE, centuries of shogunate rule, the 1868 Meiji Restoration, the Pacific War, and a new constitution under postwar American occupation. 5 flags · 1368 to present Mongolia Genghis Khan's thirteenth-century empire, the largest contiguous land empire in history, centuries under Qing Chinese rule, and independence in 1921–24 as the world's second Communist state. 9 flags · Three Kingdoms to present North Korea Heir to a millennium-plus Korean statehood tradition through Goguryeo, Silla, Goryeo, and Joseon, Japanese colonial rule until 1945, and a separate state since the peninsula's postwar division. 9 flags · Three Kingdoms to present South Korea The same Korean statehood tradition and 1910–45 Japanese colonial rule, followed by the 1950–53 Korean War and a separate state on the peninsula's southern half ever since. 7 flags · 1624 to present Taiwan Home to the Republic of China government since its 1949 relocation after the Chinese Civil War, and today a self-governing island whose political status remains disputed.

Nine snapshots, one real map

A real, traced map — actual coastlines from public GeoJSON boundary data, not schematic shapes — covering China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, with Russia, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia shown faint for geographic context only. Drag the slider or press play; each snapshot simplifies a messier reality into the dominant power of the moment. Because China/Taiwan and North/South Korea are live, actively disputed situations, every era below states only well-established dates and facts and does not characterize either situation's "correct" or final resolution.

Borders here are data, not decoration. A line between two regions only draws solid when they were actually governed separately. When they weren't — Mongolia under the same Qing emperor as China for two centuries, Taiwan and Korea both absorbed into the Japanese Empire after 1910 — the line dissolves and their names merge into whoever actually ruled them both. Japan and Taiwan are islands, so they never share a drawn border with anyone; the sea itself does that work.

1760

Qing dynasty at its height

Real traced borders (simplified from public 1:50m boundary data). Russia, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia are faint context only, not tracked regions.

Try: drag slowly from 1760 to 1910 and watch Korea's own internal line (between what are now North and South Korea) stay dissolved the whole way — one Joseon kingdom, then one Japanese colony, never two. Then jump from 1945 to 1949: watch China and Taiwan split from one shared color into two, at the same moment the Korean peninsula's line hardens from a fresh division into two established states. That Korean line, once drawn in 1945, never dissolves again on this map — not even after the 1953 armistice, which only cements a division that was already there.

The same story, as a timeline

Maps are bad at showing when; timelines are bad at showing where. This uses real transition years instead of the eight arbitrary snapshots above — one horizontal band per region, colored the same way as the map, so you can trace exactly how long each era actually lasted and compare regions directly.

The same story, eight frames — only the change lights up

Every region keeps its true color, but anything unchanged from the previous frame fades to low opacity; only the region(s) that actually changed hands stay bold with a solid outline. A caption under each frame spells out exactly what flipped. No slider to operate — scan left to right, top to bottom, and watch the map redraw itself like a flipbook.

About this hub

All six East Asian countries have their own deep-dive flag-timeline pages, linked above, and now the atlas's usual real-coastline, era-slider map as well — the same interactive format the Former Yugoslavia and German Lands hubs use to show territory changing hands across centuries, built here from real traced coastlines covering the whole region from Mongolia to Taiwan.

This page describes real historical facts about live, actively disputed situations — Taiwan's political status and the division of Korea among them — without taking a position on their current or future resolution. Dates, treaties, and government names are stated as established historical record; who "should" govern what today is a question this atlas leaves to the reader and to the governments actually involved. Each country's own page does the same in more depth.

More of the atlas

This hub is one region in a larger set. See the other phases here:

Flags Atlas indexSearch every country and hub Southeast Asia hubEleven countries, empires to independence South Asia hubEight countries, Indus Valley to Partition