Map of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

• 907Later Liang founded
• 923Later Tang destroys Later Liang
• 938The Sixteen Prefectures pass to the Khitan
• 946The Khitan enter Daliang
• 951Later Zhou and Northern Han founded
• 958Later Zhou takes the land north of the Yangtze
• 965Song destroys Later Shu
• 979Northern Han surrenders; Song reunifies China

• Later Liang3
• Later Tang4
• Later Jin2
• Later Han2
• Later Zhou3
• Yang Wu1
• Former Shu2
• Southern Han4
• Later Shu2
• Southern Tang2
• Min4
• Northern Han4
• Yan (Liu Shouguang)1
• Northern Song9
• Southern Song9

• Emperor Chu of Later Jin surrendered to the Khitan at the end of 946 (the twelfth month of the third year of Kaiyun), so on the 946 map all of Later Jin's prefectures are in the Khitan colour, except Hedong, which did not submit to the Khitan (Liu Zhiyuan, who claimed the throne in the second month of 947 and founded Later Han), shown in the Later Han colour. In fact Khitan troops never reached many prefectures, and Qin, Jie, Cheng and Feng prefectures went over to Later Shu in 947. From 947 the map follows the records prefecture by prefecture.
• Few records describe the handover of each of the Sixteen Prefectures to the Khitan. Apart from Yun, Ying, Shuo and Xin, the years are inferred from the promise to cede them (936) and the record of the Khitan making Youzhou their Southern Capital (937): You, Ji, Shun, Tan, Zhuo, Ying and Shuo in 936; Xin, Gui, Wu and Yun in 937; and Ying, Mo and Yu in 938.
• Some distant places that acknowledged a power only in name, though whether it actually governed them is doubtful, are coloured for that power (marked “nominal” in a prefecture's history): Lingzhou (the Han family of Shuofang), Cangzhou and Dezhou under Later Liang, and Wang Chuzhi and Wang Du of Dingzhou, who followed Jin and Later Tang. Liangzhou, Ganzhou and Shazhou in the Hexi Corridor sent envoys to the dynasties of the Central Plain but were held by local powers (the acting governor of Liangzhou, the Ganzhou Uyghurs, the Guiyi Army), so they are grey.
• Where the histories do not give the year a prefecture was retaken, the change is placed in the earliest year it can be confirmed as that power's. Northern Han retaking Lanzhou from Song is placed in 976 (the year Northern Han's patrol commissioner of Lanzhou was captured), and retaking Liaozhou from Later Zhou in 961 (the year a Northern Han prefect of Liaozhou appears). Yang Chongxun of Linzhou submitted to Later Zhou once in 952, but in 957 he surrendered to Later Zhou as Northern Han's prefect, so Linzhou is Northern Han until 957. After Song took Liaozhou in 964 a Northern Han prefect of Liaozhou still appears in the histories; since it cannot be decided who held the city, it stays with Song.
• Where the histories disagree on a year, the Zizhi Tongjian is followed. Chu's Lian, Zhao, Liu and Xiang prefectures passed to Southern Han in 951 according to the Zizhi Tongjian, but in 950 according to the geographical tables of the Spring and Autumn Annals of the Ten Kingdoms. For Southern Tang's prefectures north of the Yangtze taken by Later Zhou (Guang, Chu, He and others), the records divide between 957 and 958 for some of them.
• Annam (today's northern Vietnam) follows the succession of the Qu family, Yang Tingyi, Jiao Gongxian, Wu Quan and Ding Buling as recorded in the Chinese histories; what they do not record, such as the struggles after Wu Quan's death, is not shown. Dali (after Nanzhao) and Balhae (destroyed by the Khitan in 926) have no prefecture dots.
• Prefecture dots are placed at the present-day city or county, not at the exact ancient site; the identifications follow mainly Hu Sanxing's commentary. Only 216 major prefectures have dots; Weizhou, Zhongzhou, Tongzhou, Yunzhou and others do not.
• Coastlines and most rivers are modern. Only the lower Yellow River (the course it followed from the Eastern Han to 1048), the lower Huai (before Hongze Lake formed), the Si and the Luo are redrawn as rough lines through points they passed at the time.
• Later Liang, Song and the Khitan use the site's dynasty colours; the other Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms have colours of their own on this map (on the rest of the site all the Five Dynasties are orange). With too few colours, states that did not exist at the same time or lay far apart sometimes share one (gold for Later Tang and Southern Tang; orange for Later Liang and Later Shu; blue for Wuyue, the Wuping Army and the Khitan; pink for Chu, the Qingyuan Army and Yan; purple for Later Jin, Southern Han and Qi; red for Yang Wu, Later Han and Northern Han; green for Former Shu and Song; teal for Min and Later Zhou): tell them apart by name. Jin and Later Tang, Later Han and Northern Han, and Min and Yin share colours because they were one family. Jingnan, the Dingnan Army and the small powers are grey.

• Texts of the histories: the Daizhige (殆知閣) digital texts (quotations kept in simplified characters): the Zizhi Tongjian, the Zizhi Tongjian with Hu Sanxing's commentary, the Xu Zizhi Tongjian Changbian, the Old History of the Five Dynasties, the New History of the Five Dynasties, the History of Song, the History of Liao and the Spring and Autumn Annals of the Ten Kingdoms
• Coastlines, rivers and lakes: Natural Earth (public domain)
• Relief shading: NOAA ETOPO1 (public domain)

The Japanese version of this map also shows what happened each year, notes on every uncertain point, and the source passages (in Classical Chinese) for each change of hands: 五代十国の勢力図.