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A Chinese museum label may date one object to the Southern Song and another to the Jin, even when their years overlap. That does not make either label wrong. A dynasty timeline can contain governments ruling different regions at the same time. Reading it as one uninterrupted queue loses the distinction that makes those labels useful.
Use a year search to find possible historical contexts, then check the particular place, object and event. The timeline gives you a starting set, not an attribution. A bowl made in a specified region requires evidence about that region and workshop; its year alone cannot assign it to whichever dynasty appears first in a list.
Parallel rows describe overlapping time
For a compact example, compare Northern Song, 960–1127; Southern Song, 1127–1279; and Jin, 1115–1234. The Jin interval overlaps both Song periods. Southern Song does not begin after Jin ends. Keep each row on the same scale so that horizontal overlap remains visible rather than stacking names as a sequence of successors.
The diagram below selects those three rows; it is not the complete set of governments in these years. Northern and Southern Song are two historical periods of Song. Jin is a separate polity. A period label and a polity label do not always describe the same kind of unit, even when both appear in one chronology.
A timeline measures time, not territory. A longer bar does not mean a larger state, and two overlapping bars do not mean shared control of every place. To interpret a local event, add a historical map or a place-specific account. Modern province boundaries should not be projected backwards as if they described medieval jurisdictions.
A boundary year needs closer reading
Searching 1127 in the ChinaClue timeline returns Northern Song, Southern Song, Jin, Western Xia, Western Liao and Dali. Both Song periods match because their displayed year ranges include 1127. This is a year-level result, not a claim that the two periods existed simultaneously on every date in that year.
If the question concerns a dated event during the transition, retain its month and day and consult the corresponding historical account. A year-only range cannot answer the ordering of events within 1127. Likewise, an ending year shared with a succeeding period does not establish an exact handover on the first day of January.
Keep the written Chinese name when names repeat across translations. 晋 and 金 can both appear as Jin in romanized text, but they identify different historical entries. Pair the name with dates and, when needed, a region. This avoids joining records merely because an English search produces similar spelling.
Interrupted rule leaves a gap
A broad label can hide an interruption. Tang is represented here by 618–690 and 705–907, while Wu Zhou occupies 690–705. A search for 700 therefore finds Wu Zhou and does not match Tang. Calling the whole span “the Tang era” in a broad cultural discussion does not make the government continuous.
Read split intervals wherever they appear. Western Qin is recorded as 385–400 and 409–431; 405 lies in its gap. Dali is recorded as 937–1094 and 1096–1253; 1095 lies between those intervals. The downloadable table preserves the separate intervals, so a filter should not replace them with one earliest-to-latest range.
The endpoints remain inclusive at year resolution. Tang and Wu Zhou can both match 690 or 705, just as the two Song periods match 1127. For a study note, write the actual intervals before calculating or comparing. Counting calendar labels is different from measuring a precisely dated reign in elapsed years.
Coverage and uncertainty remain visible
The current reference contains 79 named records and 82 active intervals, including all sixteen members of the conventional Sixteen Kingdoms grouping and all ten of the Ten Kingdoms grouping. Those are defined groupings, not a claim that every local regime, ruler, reign title or short-lived authority in Chinese history has been catalogued.
Early dates can be approximate, and chronologies may choose different events to mark a foundation or ending. Keep the approximation sign with the date. When two references differ, first compare what each endpoint means instead of silently changing one number. Historical precision should follow the evidence available for the specific question.
For dates before the common era, retain the BCE designation. In conventional historical numbering, 1 BCE is followed by 1 CE without a year zero. The tool therefore rejects zero. Do not remove the era while transferring a year to a spreadsheet or confuse a historical date with a modern administrative-code snapshot.
Build a usable historical note
Record the Chinese name, translated name, interval, location and the event you are investigating. Mark whether your note describes a government, a broader period or an object’s attribution. Preserve the original wording of a museum label separately from your interpretation; a search result is supporting context, not a replacement for that label.
Start with the dynasty tool’s year filter, then inspect overlapping rows and interrupted intervals. Use the downloadable parallel timeline to compare records offline and keep your own annotations beside them. For an event within a transition year, add a more precise source before drawing a conclusion. The useful result is an explained relationship between time and place, not simply one dynasty name.
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