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Huangdi (huh-wong-dee) is regarded as a patriarch of China, a founding father of an ancient civilization. Moreover, many Han Chinese regard Huangdi as a direct ancestor and worship him as a god. Scholars of Chinese history agree that there is almost no reliable biographical information about Huangdi that can be separated from the mythology. The earliest dynasty of China verified by archaeological evidence is the Shang (1765-1122 BC), about one thousand years after Huangdi's reign.

Whether Huangdi is a historical person or a mythological accretion of early accomplishments, his innovations and inventions tell the story of the earliest Chinese civilization. So pervasive is the reputation of Huangdi that Chinese history might cite the year 1911 AD as the year of a nationalist revolution led by Sun Yat-sen, the first year of the Republic of China, or the 4,609th year of the "Yellow Emperor," Huangdi. Huangdi earned the name "Yellow Emperor" because he is associated with the Yellow River (or the Huang He) and earth, which is the yellow element according to ancient Chinese cosmology.

Huangdi is believed to have come from the central heartland of the Yellow River basin. Nothing is known of his family background, but some historians regard Huangdi as the third of the first five Chinese sovereigns. The Age of the Five Rulers, or Legendary period, is thought to have lasted for six hundred years in the middle of the third millennium BC. According to legend, when the early ruler Shennong died, his court official Ch'ih Yu led a rebellion of the southern barbarians, which was put down by Huangdi. Huangdi successfully suppressed the rebellious tribes and incorporated the new regions to the south beyond the Chang (Yangtze) River into the Chinese Empire. He also extended the reach of China to include regions in the eastern province on the Pacific, to the north, and to the western frontier zone including deserts and mountains. He married as his primary wife Leizu, who was the daughter of a local feudal lord. In the tradition of ancient China, Huangdi undoubtedly kept many subsidiary wives who worked in the silkworm industry.

Huangdi's role in religion adds to his cultural importance. Huangdi is regarded as a founder of Daoism who lived centuries before Laozi (Lao Tzu), the traditional "old master" and scribe of the sixth century BC text the Dao De Ching. Daoist practitioners regard Huangdi as the first master who directed the teachings of Laozi, ascended to immortality, and attained the status of patriarch of the nation.

Huangdi's accomplishments are so numerous as to include many basic ingredients of civilization. Scholars regard his inventions as possibly attributed to an amorphous "grandfather" of China. Scribes during the much later Warring States period of the Zhou Dynasty might have invented Huangdi to record traditional creation stories and myths in a human form. Early Chinese historians might have created the Age of the Five Rulers in order to give their history prestige, longevity, and continuity in the way Roman historians might have invented their early Etruscan monarchs.

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