Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE)

The Qin Dynasty, though a mere 15-year flash, unified China for the first time in 221 BCE, standardizing script, weights, and laws across a continent 1.2 million square miles in size. Its first Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, connected earlier fortifications into the initial Great Wall, a project employing 300,000 laborers, and buried 8,000 life-sized Terracotta Warriors to guard his tomb. Its legalist reforms abolished feudalism, imposing uniform axle widths and coinage.