Four Great Inventions
The Four Great Inventions are inventions from ancient China that are celebrated in Chinese culture for their historical significance and as symbols of ancient China's advanced science and technology. They are the compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing.
| Four Great Inventions | |||||||||||||||
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Five major steps in papermaking, outlined by Cai Lun in AD 105 | |||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 四大發明 | ||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 四大发明 | ||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | four great inventions | ||||||||||||||
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| Part of a series on the |
| History of science and technology in China |
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China held the world's leading position in many fields in the study of nature from the 1st century BC to the 15th century AD, with the four great inventions having the greatest global significance.
These four inventions had a profound impact on the development of civilization throughout the world. However, some modern Chinese scholars have opined that other Chinese inventions were perhaps more sophisticated and had a greater impact on Chinese civilization – the Four Great Inventions serve merely to highlight the technological interaction between East and West.