Qin, known in historiography as the Later Qin or Yao Qin (姚秦), was a dynastic state of China ruled by the Yao clan of Qiang ethnicity during the Sixteen Kingdoms period in northern China. The Later Qin is entirely distinct from the Qin dynasty, the Former Qin and the Western Qin.

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.