How the Tang-Song Era Is a Golden Age

The definition of a Golden Age is a time of economic, political, technological, and social improvement and advance at a great level. The Tang and Song Dynasties are very important to the history of Chinese civilization. The Tang Era is the most well-known dynasty in Chinese history, mainly because the empire was the largest, richest and most sophisticated state in the world at the time. The Song Era had far-reaching impacts economically, culturally, and socially. During the Song Era, there was major development in urbanization. The Tang and Song Eras are commonly referred to as being the basis of a Golden Age of Chinese civilization because they were two major time periods in which stunning development in China took place.
The Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) was a very important era because it pushed the borders of China to Korea, Turkistan, Vietnam, and Persia and provided relative stability within China for several centuries. The Tang also established many of the cultural, literary, and artistic traditions that have come to define Chinese society. To this day, for example, the Chinese term for the various "Chinatowns" in such places as New York is Tang Ren Jie, or "Tang People Street," signifying the continued connection the Chinese hold with the achievements of the Tang. Poetry, painting, and even calligraphy reached new heights in the first two centuries of Tang rule. That was made possible, in part, because of the internal stability that China enjoyed under Tang rule.
There were many conquests that were made during the Tang Dynasty on the western frontier that opened up trade routes and helped to establish connections between the civilized cores of Eurasia. China tended to export manufactured goods and import luxuries. Commercial shipping improved as the pace of trade quickened, such as the Chinese junks. These Chinese Junks were the finest commercial vessels in the world at this time. Market quarters in Chinese cities also grew larger. These markets were organized