# Tang Dynasty The **Tang Dynasty** (618-907) presided over the overland Silk Road's greatest period and over what is conventionally treated as the cosmopolitan high point of imperial Chinese civilization. Tang armies reasserted control of the Tarim Basin oasis states, and the capital Chang'an — roughly a million people, likely the largest city on earth — held resident Sogdian, Persian, Arab, Turkic, Korean and Japanese communities alongside Nestorian, Manichaean, Zoroastrian and Buddhist establishments. Two events broke it. The [[Battle of Talas]] in 751 fixed the boundary between the Chinese and Islamic spheres in Central Asia, and the An Lushan rebellion of 755-763 devastated the state, forced the withdrawal of the western garrisons, and triggered a violent turn against the foreign merchant communities. Chinese control of the overland route would not be restored for roughly a millennium. See [[Chinese History Hub]]. > [!note] Stub > Spine stub. Expand: the founding and the Taizong and Xuanzong reigns, the examination system, Buddhism's peak and the 845 persecution, the An Lushan rebellion, and the dynasty's fragmentation.