List of Bronze Age states

The Bronze Age (c. 3300–1200 BC) marks the emergence of the first complex state societies, and by the Middle Bronze Age (mid-3rd millennium BC) the first empires. This is a list of Bronze Age polities.

Overview map of the world at the end of the 2nd millennium BC, color-coded by cultural stage:

  Palaeolithic or Mesolithic hunter-gatherers

  nomadic pastoralists

  simple farming societies

  complex farming societies (Old World Bronze Age, Andes)

  state societies (Fertile Crescent, China)

Bronze Age

↑ Chalcolithic

Africa, Near East (c. 3300–1200 BC) Egypt, Anatolia, Caucasus, Elam, Levant, Mesopotamia, Sistan, Canaan Late Bronze Age collapse Indian subcontinent (c. 3300–1200 BC) Indus Valley Civilisation Bronze Age India Ochre Coloured Pottery Cemetery H Europe (c. 3200–600 BC) Aegean (Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean), Caucasus, Catacomb culture, Srubnaya culture, Beaker culture, Apennine culture, Terramare culture, Unetice culture, Tumulus culture, Urnfield culture, Proto-Villanovan culture, Hallstatt culture, Canegrate culture, Golasecca culture, Atlantic Bronze Age, Bronze Age Britain, Nordic Bronze Age Eurasia and Siberia (c. 2700–700 BC) Poltavka culture, Abashevo culture, Sintashta culture, Andronovo culture, Mezhovskaya culture, Cherkaskul culture East Asia (c. 3100–300 BC) Erlitou, Erligang, Gojoseon, Jomon, Majiayao, Mumun, Qijia, Siwa, Wucheng, Xindian, Yueshi, Xia dynasty, Shang dynasty, Zhou dynasty

arsenical bronze writing literature sword chariot

↓Iron Age

By the end of the Bronze Age, complex state societies were mostly limited to the Fertile Crescent and to China, while Bronze Age tribal chiefdoms with less complex forms of administration were found throughout Bronze Age Europe and Central Asia, in the northern Indian subcontinent, and in parts of Mesoamerica and the Andes (although these latter societies were not in the Bronze Age cultural stage).