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East Asia · The Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern dynasties

Former Yan

337–370

Former Yan (337–370) was founded by the Xianbei Murong clan (Murong Huang declared Prince of Yan 337; Murong Jun took the imperial title). From capitals at Longcheng then Ye, it dominated the northeast and the North China Plain, at its height a great power.

Existed
337–370
Shown on the map
AD 337–370
Peak area
766k km²
Region
East Asia

Overview

Former Yan (337–370) was founded by the Xianbei Murong clan (Murong Huang declared Prince of Yan 337; Murong Jun took the imperial title). From capitals at Longcheng then Ye, it dominated the northeast and the North China Plain, at its height a great power. It was conquered by the Former Qin under Fu Jiān in 370; the last emperor Murong Wei was captured.

Common questions

What was Former Yan?
Former Yan (337–370) was founded by the Xianbei Murong clan (Murong Huang declared Prince of Yan 337; Murong Jun took the imperial title). From capitals at Longcheng then Ye, it dominated the northeast and the North China Plain, at its height a great power.
When did Former Yan exist?
Former Yan existed 337–370. On this map it is drawn AD 337–370.
How large was Former Yan?
At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Former Yan covered about 766,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.

Sources

This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia article for each polity as the basis of these profiles, supplemented by Encyclopaedia Britannica, chinaknowledge.de, the World History Encyclopedia, museum and university sources, and the academic works it lists. The article this entry is anchored on:

This entry was last updated .

This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made

Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.

Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).

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