As an important part of human civilization, horse culture reflects the relationship between human beings and horses and contains the cognition, domestication and employment of horses, as well as art, literature and sports about horses. The long-standing Chinese horse culture is characterized by its profoundness and extensiveness.

With a brilliant and advanced horse culture, China was among the first nations to raise horses. More than 5,000 years ago, Chinese people began using carts pulled by horses. During the Zhou Dynasty (about 1100-221BC), horses were generally divided into six categories: the stud horse, military horse, ceremonial horse, post horse, hunting horse and fatigue horse. A relatively complete horse administration organization had been built up in the Qin and Han dynasties (221BC-AD220). About 300,000 horses were raised in the frontier northwestern regions in the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220), and at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) the number increased to 700,000, with the administration having been greatly improved. More than 7,000 fine breeds of horses were introduced from remote western regions to improve the quality of military horses. The thriving of horse breeding not only played an important role in national defense, but also propelled cultural communications between China and other nations in the west.

With the development of the horse breeding industry, abundant experiences were  accumulated throughout the ages, and, as a science, horse breeding had attained great achievements. Feizi, a great breeder, and Zaofu, a superb carriage driver, appeared in the early Zhou Dynasty. In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770-221BC), many horse experts had emerged. Their methods for judging the quality of horses were based on very different perspectives and thus different genres were formed accordingly which built up a solid foundation for its subsequent development. The most famous master was named Bole, and others like him that followed also adopted the name. The word "Bole" became a Chinese idiom. The monograph on distinguishing fine breeds of horses by Bole is the earliest of its kind in the world. Other monographs on the subject also appeared during the Tang Dynasty.

Laws protecting horses were implemented during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), but with a very limited effect. The Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) attached great importance to horse breeding, although it was limited to a very small area. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) took advantage of the horse administration from previous dynasties and implemented a fairly complete system for horse breeding. Official horse breeding was greatly extended in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), although non-governmental horse breeding was very much restricted and horse-trading was banned, which seriously damaged the industry. Due to the warfare since 1911, especially during the Anti-Japanese War, horse breeding experienced a sharp decline. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government took some protective measures in breeding domestic animals. As a result, the number of horses increased dramatically. Meanwhile, the quality of horses was also very much improved. As of 1977, the number of horses totaled 11,447,000, ranking No 1 in the world.

Horses in China are mainly distributed in the northern regions, including the vast area of Xinjiang and Qinghai in the west of Lanzhou, Inner Mongolia, Northeast China and the northern part of North China, the mountainous regions in Sichuan Province, Yunnan and Guizhou Plateau. The number of horses in Northeast, Northwest and North China accounts for three-fourths of the country's total.

Even people with a limited understanding of Chinese culture will agree that the horse has always played a very important role in Chinese culture and art. For instance, Xu Beihong, one of the most reputed painters in China, is famous for his horse drawings. His first published work was a horse drawing and his first work to be acclaimed by experts at the time was also a horse drawing. Meanwhile, Xu's works does not only emphasize the value of appreciation, but also reflect and express his patriotic feelings.

In addition, there is a considerable number of idioms, poems, drawings, crafts and legends that are related to horses in Chinese culture, among which the Bronze Galloping Horse and Silver Pot with Cup-in Mouth Dancing Horse design are the most famous.

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Bronze Galloping Horse	Silver Pot with Cup-in Mouth Dancing Horse Design
Jade Galloping Horse	Horse-headed qin and its origin

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