Zhao, briefly known officially as Wei (衛) in 350, known in historiography as the Later Zhao or Shi Zhao (石趙), was a dynasty of China ruled by the Shi family of Jie ethnicity during the Sixteen Kingdoms period. According to Alexander Vovin, the Jie were most likely a Yeniseian people and spoke next to Chinese one of the Yeniseian languages. Among the Sixteen Kingdoms, the Later Zhao was the second in territorial size to the Former Qin dynasty that once unified northern China under Fu Jian.

For most of its history, China was organized into various dynastic states under the rule of hereditary monarchs. Beginning with the establishment of dynastic rule by Yu the Great c. 2070 BC, and ending with the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor in AD 1912, Chinese historiography came to organize itself around the succession of monarchical dynasties. Besides those established by the dominant Han ethnic group or its spiritual Huaxia predecessors, dynasties throughout Chinese history were also founded by non-Han peoples.