According to the basic unity of the Yellow River basin, the dynasties that appeared in the Central Plains in history have successively:

Xia-Shang-Zhou-Qin-Western Han-Xin Mang-Eastern Han-Cao Wei-Western Jin-Former Qin-Northern Wei-Northern Zhou-Sui-Tang-Houliang-Later Tang-Later Jin-Later Han-Later Zhou-

The narrow sense of the Central Plains refers to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River with Henan as the center, including today's Henan Province and its adjacent areas, including large areas such as southeastern Shanxi, southern Hebei, north-central Shandong, southwestern Shandong, northern Anhui and northern Jiangsu. Broadly speaking, the area north of the Yangtze River and south of the Great Wall is the Central Plains. When it comes to foreigners, all Chinese cultural areas are the Central Plains. Correspondingly, there are regional names such as Jiangnan, Jiangdong and Bashu.

For more than 3,000 years from Xia Dynasty to Song and Jin Dynasties, the Central Plains has been the political, economic and cultural center of China. Among the eight ancient capitals of China with historical records or archaeological evidence, there are four in the Central Plains.