What is "yan"

n. 1 (context historic English) An ancient march, duchy, and kingdom of northeastern China during the Zhou dynasty 2 (context historic English) The realm of this land under later imperial Chinese dynasties

Yan (; Old Chinese pronunciation: *) was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. Its capital was Ji (later known as Yanjing and now Beijing). During the Warring States period, the court was also moved to another capital at Xiadu at times.

The history of Yan began in the Western Zhou in the early first millennium BCE. After the authority of the Zhou king declined during the Spring and Autumn Period in the 8th century BCE, Yan survived and became one of the strongest states in China. During the Warring States period from the 5th to 3rd centuries BCE, Yan was one of the last states to be conquered by the armies of Qin Shihuang: Yan fell in 222 BCE, the year before the declaration of the Qin Empire. Yan experienced a brief period of independence after the collapse of the Qin dynasty in 207 BCE, but it was eventually absorbed by the victorious Han.

Yan may refer to:

Yan (燕) was a very short lived kingdom in the vicinity of present-day Beijing at the beginning of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, which is traditionally dated as being from 907 to 960. Yan, established by Liu Shouguang in 911, only lasted for two years before destroyed by Li Cunxu the prominent leader of Later Tang.

As the only ruler of Yan, Liu was noted for his cruelty, so this Yan was also called Jie Yan, which compared the regime to a former one under the cruel king Jie in Xia Dynasty.

Yan is a Chinese surname, it is the pinyin romanization for several Chinese characters such as " ", " ", " ", " ", " ", " ", " ", " ", " " in simplified (traditional) form. Note that these characters are spelled as Yen in the Wade–Giles romanization system which was the prevalent one before the early 80s. From such, individuals and institutions whom have had to romanize their Chinese names prior to that time, such as when having their books translated or publishing manuscripts outside of China, used "Yen" instead of "Yan". Such examples include Yenching University and the Harvard-Yenching Institute. The Yan surname in Taiwan is mostly spelled as Yen since only until recently has the government approved the use of pinyin romanization of names. The Cantonese romanization of these surnames is "Yim". As such, most people from Hong Kong and Chinese diaspora that emigrated prior to 1949 from Guangdong use the name Yim. On many occasions, " " in Cantonese is also romanized as Yan.

Yan , also known as the Great Yan , was a state established in 756 by the Tang Dynasty general An Lushan, after he rebelled against the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang in 755. The state was extinguished in 763, with the death of An Lushan's former subordinate, Shi Siming's son, Shi Chaoyi, who was the last person to claim the title as Yan's emperor.

Yan was a federal constituency in Kedah, Malaysia, that was represented in the Dewan Rakyat from 1995 to 2004.

The federal constituency was created in the 1994 redistribution and was mandated to return a single member to the Dewan Rakyat under the first past the post voting system.