Huaxia in the context of Central Plain (China)

For most of its history, China was organized into various dynastic kingdoms or states under the rule of hereditary monarchs. Beginning with the establishment of dynastic rule by Yu the Great c. 2070 BC, and ending with Emperor Yuan Shi Kai in AD 1916, China came to organize itself around the succession of monarchical dynasties. Besides those established by the dominant Han ethnic group or its spiritual Huaxia predecessors, dynasties throughout Chinese history were also founded by non-Han peoples.

Dividing Chinese history into dynastic epochs is a convenient and conventional method of periodization. Accordingly, a dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which a family reigned, as well as to describe events, trends, personalities, artistic compositions, and artifacts of that period. For example, porcelain made during the Ming dynasty may be referred to as "Ming porcelain".

Zhongyuan (Chinese: 中原; pinyin: Zhōngyuán), the Central Plain(s), also known as Zhongtu (Chinese: 中土; pinyin: Zhōngtǔ, lit. 'central land') and Zhongzhou (Chinese: 中州; pinyin: Zhōngzhōu, lit. 'central region'), commonly refers to the part of the North China Plain surrounding the lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River, centered on the region between Luoyang and Kaifeng. It has been perceived as the birthplace of the Chinese civilization. Historically, the Huaxia people viewed Zhongyuan as 'the center of the world'. Human activities in the Zhongyuan region can be traced back to the Palaeolithic period.

In prehistoric times, Huaxia, a confederation of tribes that later developed into the Han ethnicity, lived along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. The term 'Zhongguo' (Central State) was used to distinguish themselves from the Siyi tribes that were perceived as 'barbaric'. For a large part of Chinese history, Zhongyuan had been the political, economic, and cultural center of the Chinese civilization, as over 20 dynasties had located their capitals in this region.

The Han Chinese, alternatively the Han people or the Chinese people, are an East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. With a global population of over 1.4 billion, the Han Chinese are the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 17% of the world population. The Han Chinese represent 91.11% of the population in China and 97% of the population in Taiwan. Han Chinese are a significant diasporic group in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. In Singapore, people of some form of Chinese descent make up around 75% of the country's population.

The Han Chinese have exerted a primary formative influence in Chinese culture and history. Originating from Zhongyuan, the Han Chinese trace their ancestry and culture to the Huaxia people, a confederation of agricultural tribes that lived along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in the north central plains of China.

Sinocentrism refers to a worldview that China is the cultural, political, or economic center of the world. Sinocentrism was a core concept in various Chinese dynasties. The Chinese considered themselves to be "all-under-Heaven", ruled by the emperor, known as Son of Heaven. Those that lived outside of the Huaxia were regarded as "barbarians". In addition, states outside of China, such as Vietnam, Japan or Korea, were considered to be vassals of China.

"Four Barbarians" (Chinese: 四夷; pinyin: sìyí) was a term used by subjects of the Zhou and Han dynasties to refer to the four major people groups living outside the borders of Huaxia. Each was named for a cardinal direction: the Dongyi ("Eastern Barbarians"), Nanman ("Southern Barbarians"), Xirong ("Western Barbarians"), and Beidi ("Northern Barbarians"). Ultimately, the four barbarian groups either emigrated away from the Chinese heartland or were partly assimilated through sinicization into Chinese culture during later dynasties. After this early period, "barbarians" to the north and the west would often be designated as "Hu" (胡).

China proper, also called Inner China or Han China, are terms used primarily in the Western world in reference to the traditional "core" regions of Chinese civilization centered around the Yellow River and Yangtze River valleys. There is no fixed definition for China proper as many administrative, cultural and territorial shifts have occurred throughout history. One definition refers to the original heartland regions of the Chinese civilization, the Central Plain (southern North China Plain around the lower Yellow River valley) as well as the historical Nine Provinces; another to the Eighteen Provinces inside Shanhai Pass designated by the Qing regime. In contrast, Outer China is a term usually includes the peripheral marchland regions such as Gobi Desert,, Tarim Basin, Northeast China, Dzungaria, Tibetan Plateau and Yungui Plateau, which were historically autonomous regions with unstable allegiance to the authority of Chinese monarchs.

The term was first used by the Europeans during the 17th century to distinguish the historical "Han lands" (Chinese: 漢地, i.e. regions long dominated by the majority Han Chinese population) from "frontier" regions of China where Han populations intermix with other indigenous ethnicities (e.g. Turkic peoples such as Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Uzbeks, Mongolic peoples, and Tibeto-Burmese peoples such as Tibetans, Yi and Bai) and newer foreign immigrants (e.g. Slavic colonists such as Russians and Ukrainian Cossacks), sometimes known as "Outer China". There was no direct translation for "China proper" in the Chinese language at the time due to differences in terminology used by the Qing regime to refer to the regions.