The Northern Wei Dynasty, a non-Han polity thought to have been founded in 386 by the Tuoba clan of the Xianbei tribe, is most noted for the unification of northern China in 439.

Also heavily involved in funding the arts (many works from this period survive), the dynasty had moved its capital in 494 from Datong to Luoyang and initiated the construction of the artificial Longmen Caves, where more than thirty thousand Buddhist images from the time of this dynasty will be found in modern times.

The Tuobas had at some point renamed themselves the Yuans as a part of systematic Sinicization.

Towards the end of the dynasty, which comes in 534, there had been significant internal dissidence resulting in civil wars.

General Gao Huan, originally a member of the rebel soldiers from the northern frontier, had surrendered to the general Erzhu Rong, then become one of the Erzhu clan's top lieutenants; after the clan's open war with the emperor, Gao Huan had immediately gathered his own men and turned against his former leader.

He and another general, Yuwen Tai, have established themselves in the eastern and western parts of the state, respectively, and have declared for rival claimants to the Northern Wei throne, leading to the state's division in 534-535 into Eastern Wei and Western Wei, neither of which will last much past twenty years.