History glossary
commanderies
large administrative districts governed by officials appointed from the centre rather than hereditary local rulers.
- Category
- Administrative unit
- Region
- China
- Date range
- Qin dynasty and later imperial China
What it means
Commanderies were territorial administrative districts used by Qin and later imperial governments. Instead of granting conquered regions to hereditary lords, Qin placed commanderies and counties under appointed officials, making local government answerable to the imperial centre.
Related terms
Stories using this term
The Han Dynasty
From Liu Bang's foundation to the end of the dynasty in 220 CE, the Han built the institutions, Confucian statecraft, frontier policy, and cultural memory that shaped imperial China for centuries.
Qin China and Unification
From the Warring States to the rise of the Han, Qin unification ended centuries of interstate rivalry and created the centralised imperial model that shaped Chinese history for more than two thousand years.
