<p>That's possible, at the very least it's well after humans stopped living on lion turtles, but I think people overlook the possibility of distortions in the timeline. Some of the kings may have been mythical, there may have been a period where they tried splitting the kingdom between offspring, there may have been periods of short lifespans, & so on. </p>

<p>Alright, even though that is a fairly long span for one king to rule, your logic is sound, so I guess it'll fly. Now, 3000 years is an extremely long time for a monarchy to exist, even if the people in the world of Avatar seem to reproduce a little slower than we do. Just look at the history of China: nearly 2000 years of emperors, but not really continuous. There were periods when there was no emperor, periods where the different provinces and regions were ruled by warlords, and nearly a dozen dynasties went by before the last emperor was finally dethroned in the beginning of the 20th century. So it's possible that the EK went through something similar, different dynasties with different Kings, or even periods of anarchy like there was in Legend of Korra, but then you can still claim it was one loosely bound nation. </p>

It seems possible. It would also be around the same millenia that Laghima lived.

<p>I think the Avatar would have helped to increase the overall stability of the Earth Kingdom by giving an super powered supporter to long term peace and order. Remember that China's imperial age ultimately fell to outside pressure which it had tried to limit for a significant period of time before the Opium wars and then the Manchuria war. The Avatar was most likely seen as the keeper of the 4 nations, and although Roku failed to stop in it the long term, they are most like expected to maintain political balance between the 4 nations so no one nation would be destroying the government of another. </p><p>Although maybe I support this idea only because the Avatar era was 10000 years, so any civilisation that gets respected as one of the 4 nations must have had as ancient roots as possible. Note the title Earth King was only created when the ruler of Ba Sing Se took over the whole continent, so the kingdom is probably older again. This long history has to exist in order to fill in the large gap between Avatar Wan and Avatar Yangchen, who is the oldest avatar we have any info on. </p>

<p>Well, the messiness of the situation that Yangchen was in suggests something closer to a warring states period, as does Kyoshi's story of how Chin conquered most of the mainland of the Earth Kingdom. What's more, given the short we saw of Kyoshi arguing with the 46th king, I'm hard pressed to say that the Avatar was generally on their side. Korra didn't seem too distressed either that Zaheer killed Hou-Ting, and according to her, Aang and Zuko used Kuei's weakness, which again points to a rather one-sided partnership. </p><p>And again, the EK is only very loosely bound together, almost to the point that the king seems to have no real power outside the walls of Ba Sing Se. The local power seems to be in the hands of governors and kings and other people, like Bumi. </p>

<p>Would be cool to hear some story about Guru Laghima having something to do with the massacre of the previous Earth Kingdom Dinasty, because I guess that Kuei's isn't the only Earth Royal Dinasty. Am I right? </p>

<p>I've only heard of the Hou Ting Dynasty to be honest. They're one big family, aren't they? xD </p>