Geography in Ancient Egypt and Early China

In the beginning of history, many different civilizations appeared. Geography heavily impacted these civilizations, and among these civilizations were Ancient Egypt and Early China. Both of these great civilizations started from a river valley and slowly developed in to great nations, but these two civilizations based their agriculture beginnings off different crops; China had wheat and millet while Egypt had barley and cereals, yet both of these civilizations were able to last and survive to this day. Early growth of the two civilizations reflected one another. Both civilizations were surrounded by natural land barriers restricting them both to an isolated form of growth; Ancient Egypt had the Sahara Desert to the west and the Arabian Desert to the east; the only form of contact that they had was from Nubia. Just as the Egyptians had their boundaries, the Chinese had their contacts limited by the Himalayas, many different deserts, and the Pacific Ocean leaving only a small area from which the Chinese could trade from. This explains why the Chinese artifacts are mainly found only in the Asian area; the culture did not spread because China did not trade with other countries this early in the century. Another similar growth is that they are both river-based civilizations; Egypt had the Nile while China had the Yellow and Yangzi. These rivers were vital to the success and growth of these civilizations. Without these rivers, these civilizations would’ve most likely died out; because of the rivers, both civilizations were major farmers with much agricultural production occurring on the river valleys. This was partly due to the fact that they were large civilizations, so they had more mouths to feed within the nation. Surprisingly, the Chinese and the Egyptians both developed a similar form of rule and religion. During China’s Zhou dynasty, the rulers developed a new god named, “Heaven”. This god gave the king the right to rule and could also strip away that right