The Warlord era represents the period in the history of the Republic of China from 1916 to the late-1930s when the country is divided by various military cliques; this division continues until the fall of the Nationalist government in mainland China in many regions, such as in Sichuan, Shanxi, Qinghai, Ningxia, Guangdong, Guangxi, Gansu, Yunnan, and Xinjiang.It follows the death of Yuan Shikai and nominally ends in 1928 at the conclusion of the Northern Expedition with the Northeast Flag Replacement, beginning the "Nanjing decade".

However, after old warlords such as Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang are brought down, various new elements of warlordism are to persist into the 1930s and 1940s, as the central government struggles to keep its nominal allies under its rein, and this will prove to be a major headache for the Kuomintang (KMT) all the way through the Second World War and the ensuing civil war.

Some of the most notable of the warlord conflicts post-1928 include the Central Plains War, which involves nearly a million soldiers.