Why have ruling dynasties lasted so much longer in Asia than in other parts of the world?

by AsaTJ

I was reading up on the longest-surviving dynasties, and they're almost all in Asia. The Yamato in Japan, the Hồng Bàng in Vietnam, the Gojoseon in Korea, the Zhou in China. By contrast, it seems like most European dynasties were comparatively around for the blink of an eye. The only exception might be the Habsburgs, but even they didn't maintain a continuous, territorial core for their entire reign.

IntransigentMemorial

Gojoseon did not actually last more than 2000 years. The Korean historian 송호정 (whose views I support) in his 한국 고대사 속의 고조선사 argues that the Gojoseon did not exist before the 7th or 8th century BC, and quite literally nobody in academia seriously entertains the notion that it existed 4500 years ago. Besides, the Gojoseon polity was not one concurrent dynasty even according to the traditional account, as it is claimed that Jizi founded a new dynasty around 1000 BC (probably not true) and we know almost for sure that the Chinese emigrant Weiman took the throne in 196 BC.

Hồng Bàng is essentially a Lê Dynasty invention. From Postcolonial Vietnam: New Histories of the National Past (see also The Biography of the Hong Bang Clan as a Medieval Vietnamese Invented Tradition)

For Trần rulers, "Văn Lang" [the kingdom of the Hồng Bàng dynasty] was an ideal more than a specific time and place, and, to the extent they thought of it in more literal terms, they located it in the seventh century B.C.E. Because of the destructiveness of the Ming invasion and occupation (1407-1427), however, fifteenth-century Vietnamese had new preoccupations. Specifically, they felt compelled to demonstrate that Vietnam had come to resemble Ming China more closely. To lend greater dignity to the Vietnamese past, as they believed dignity was defined by the Ming, they transformed Vietnamese antiquity into a much more ancient tradition. Whereas Trần dynasty scholars had turned to the image of Văn Lang as a symbolic expression of excellence, Lê dynasty scholars began to regard it as a testament to the historical longevity, and therefore prestige, of Vietnam. The new function of Văn Lang required a new lineage, so Ngô Sĩ Liên located its origins in the year 2879 BC [...] But, it should be pointed out, Ngô Sĩ Liên was not necessarily insisting on its historical veracity. The chronology he devised was supposed to function politically rather than mimetically.

For the Zhou and the Yamato I will let someone answer, but do remember that for most of their history the Zhou kings and Yamato emperors had/have no actual power.