Among the four ancient civilizations, China's mathematics has the longest lasting prosperity. In the ancient book Shiben, it has been mentioned that the Yellow Emperor wrote "the number of official heads", but this is only a legend.

In the records of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, China had already used a complete decimal notation, and in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, strict decimal notation began to appear again. As an ancient computing tool in China, calculation is a special contribution of ancient mathematics in China to human civilization.

Various geometric figures were painted on painted pottery in Yangshao culture period more than 5,000 years ago, and hexagonal and nine-angled pottery circles were also unearthed in Yangshao cultural sites, indicating that some simple geometric knowledge was already available at that time.

China is one of the first countries in the world to use decimal counting. Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty had a decimal count, with a maximum of 30,000. In the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, they mastered the simple operation of natural numbers and used multiples.

In14th century BC, China's classical mathematics experienced three development climaxes: Qin and Han Dynasties, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and Song and Yuan Dynasties, and reached its peak in Song and Yuan Dynasties.

The Qin and Han Dynasties were the period when the ancient mathematical system of China was formed. Its main symbol is that arithmetic has become a specialized subject, and the emergence of mathematical works represented by Nine Chapters of Arithmetic.

Nine Chapters Arithmetic was written in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, which is a summary of the development of mathematics during the establishment and consolidation of feudal society in Qin and Han Dynasties. As far as its mathematical achievements are concerned, it is a world-famous mathematical work. There are already four fractional operations, square root and square root, numerical solution of quadratic equation, various formulas of area and volume, solution of linear equations, addition and subtraction of positive and negative numbers, Pythagorean theorem and solution of Pythagorean number in the book, all of which are very high level. Among them, the solution of equations and the addition and subtraction of positive and negative numbers were far ahead in the development of world mathematics at that time.

Mathematics in Qin and Han dynasties emphasized practicality, and laid particular stress on mathematical problems and their solutions which were closely combined with production and life at that time. "Nine Chapters Arithmetic" was later spread to Japan, Europe and other countries, making great contributions to the development of mathematics in the world.

Metaphysics appeared in the Wei and Jin Dynasties and flourished in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Metaphysics broke free from the shackles of Confucian classics and became more active. It can argue and win, use logical thinking and analyze truth, all of which are conducive to improving mathematics theoretically. Among them, Zhou Kuai was annotated by Zhao of Wu State, Zhou Kuai was annotated by Liu Hui, and Nine Chapters of Double Difference Map appeared during the Wei and Jin Dynasties. They laid a theoretical foundation for China's ancient mathematical system.

Zhao Shuang was one of the earliest mathematicians who proved and deduced mathematical theorems and formulas in ancient China. The Pythagorean Diagram and Annotations and Sunrise Diagram and Annotations, which he supplemented in Zhou Pian Shu Jing, are very important mathematical documents. In Pythagorean Square Diagram and Notes, he put forward five formulas to prove Pythagorean theorem and Pythagorean shape with chord diagram; In Sunrise Picture, he proved the weight difference formula widely used in Han Dynasty with the graphic area. Zhao Shuang's work was groundbreaking and played an important role in the development of ancient mathematics in China. Liu Hui's annotation not only explains and deduces the methods, formulas and theorems mentioned in Nine Chapters Arithmetic, but also gets great development in the process of discussion. Liu Hui also created secant technology, proved the formula of circle area with the idea of limit, and calculated pi by theoretical method for the first time. He also proved that the volume ratio of right-angled square cone to right-angled tetrahedron is constant at 2: 1 by infinite division, which solved the key problem of general solid volume. When proving the volume of square cone, cylinder, cone and frustum, Liu Hui put forward the correct method to solve the volume of sphere completely, but he did not give the formula. After the Eastern Jin Dynasty, China was in a state of war and division between the north and the south for a long time, and its economy and culture began to move southward, which promoted the rapid development of mathematics in the south. The representatives of this period are Zu Chongzhi and his son Zuxuan. On the basis of Liu Hui's annotation, Zu Chongzhi and his son greatly promoted traditional mathematics. Their calculated pi is between 3.1415926-3.1415927, which makes China lead the west in pi calculation for about one thousand years. His son, Zu Xuan, summed up Liu Hui's related work and put forward that "the potential is the same, but the product is not different", that is, two solids with the same height, if the horizontal cross-sectional area of any height is equal, the volumes of the two solids are equal, which is the famous axiom of Zu Xuan. Zu Xuan applied this axiom to solve Liu Hui's unsolved spherical volume formula.

During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, agriculture, handicrafts and commerce flourished unprecedentedly, and science and technology advanced by leaps and bounds. Gunpowder, compass and printing are widely used in this highly developed economy. The printing and publishing of some mathematics books has created good conditions for the development of mathematics. During this period, a number of famous mathematicians and mathematical works appeared, such as Jia Xian's Nine-chapter Algorithm Fine Grass, His Theory of Ancient Origin, Qin's Nine-chapter Calculator, Rounding the Sea Mirror and an Ancient Yan Duan, Yang Hui's Detailed Explanation of Nine-chapter Algorithm, Daily Algorithm and Yang Hui's Algorithm, and Zhu Shijie's Detailed Explanation of Nine-chapter Algorithm.

Astronomers Wang Xun and Guo Shoujing in Yuan Dynasty solved the problem of cubic function interpolation in the calendar method. The climax of China's ancient computing technology reform also appeared in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. The historical documents in the Song and Yuan Dynasties contain a large number of practical arithmetic bibliographies in this period, which are far more than those in the Tang Dynasty. The main content of the reform is still multiplication and division. At the same time as the algorithm reform, the abacus of wearing beads may have appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty. However, if the modern abacus calculation is regarded as both a kind of penetrating abacus calculation and a set of perfect algorithms and formulas, it should be said that it was finally completed in the Yuan Dynasty.

China entered the late feudal society from the Ming Dynasty, and after the end of 16, western elementary mathematics was introduced to China one after another, which made China's mathematical research present a situation of combining Chinese and western; After the Opium War, modern mathematics began to be introduced into China, and China's mathematics turned into a period of mainly learning western mathematics; It was not until the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century that the study of modern mathematics really began. Some people began to study mathematics abroad, such as 1903, Feng Zuxun, 1908, Zheng,19, Hu Mingfu and19, Jiang Lifu, 650. Among them, Hu Mingfu received his doctorate from Harvard University in the United States on 19 17, becoming the first mathematician in China to receive his doctorate. Most of them became famous mathematicians and mathematicians after returning to China, and made important contributions to the development of modern mathematics in China.

With the return of foreign students, mathematics education in universities around the world has also improved. At first, only Peking University had a math department. Later, Tianjin Nankai University, Southeast University (now Nanjing University) and Tsinghua University also set up mathematics departments. Soon, Wuhan University, cheeloo university, Zhejiang University and Sun Yat-sen University also set up mathematics departments. By 1932, 32 universities have established departments of mathematics or mathematics and physics. Chinese mathematical society was founded in 1935, and the annals of chinese mathematical society and Journal of Mathematics came out one after another, which marked the further development of modern mathematics research in China.