East Asia · Fragmentation, Song and the conquest dynasties
Southern Song
1127–1279
The Southern Song (1127–1279) was the continuation of the Song after the loss of the north, capital Lin'an (Hangzhou), founded by Emperor Gaozong. Despite territorial loss, it was an economic and cultural powerhouse—maritime trade, Neo-Confucianism (Zhu Xi), landscape painting, and urban prosperity.
- Existed
- 1127–1279
- Shown on the map
- 1028–1278
- Peak area
- 2.8M km²
- Region
- East Asia
Overview
The Southern Song (1127–1279) was the continuation of the Song after the loss of the north, capital Lin'an (Hangzhou), founded by Emperor Gaozong. Despite territorial loss, it was an economic and cultural powerhouse—maritime trade, Neo-Confucianism (Zhu Xi), landscape painting, and urban prosperity. It resisted the Jin (general Yue Fei) and then the Mongols for decades, finally falling in 1279 at the naval Battle of Yamen, where the last emperor perished.
Common questions
- What was Southern Song?
- The Southern Song (1127–1279) was the continuation of the Song after the loss of the north, capital Lin'an (Hangzhou), founded by Emperor Gaozong. Despite territorial loss, it was an economic and cultural powerhouse—maritime trade, Neo-Confucianism (Zhu Xi), landscape painting, and urban prosperity.
- When did Southern Song exist?
- Southern Song existed 1127–1279. On this map it is drawn 1028–1278.
- How large was Southern Song?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Southern Song covered about 2.8 million 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:
- Wikipedia — Song dynasty en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty
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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