Confucius (Chinese: 孔夫子; pinyin: Kǒng Fūzǐ; Wade-Giles: K'ung-fu-tzu), lit. "Master Kung," 551 BCE – 479 BCE) was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought and life.

Not much is known for certain about Confucius himself. He was born in the state of Lu, in what is modern day China's Shandong province. Some doubt has been cast on the traditionally accepted dates of his birth and death (above), and they should be taken as approximate; the number 72 had great importance in the Chinese superstitions of old, and it is possible the dates were modified or guessed at to bring his age to this number.

Confucius himself was most likely a teacher of students who hoped to go into official positions in government. One thing that may have marked him as radically different from his predecessors was not only his philosophy, but that he was one of, if not the, first teacher of this sort to accept students who were not of noble birth. In this way, Confucian ideals for a "higher man" (君子, pinyin junzi, often translated into English as "gentleman") were not strictly for the already-governing class, but for those aspiring to attain official positions.

Modern historians do not believe that any specific documents can be said to have been written by Confucius himself, but for nearly 2,000 years he was thought to be the editor or author of all the Five Classics such as the Classic of Rites (editor), and the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋) (author).

His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. These values gained prominence in China over other doctrines, such as Legalism (法家) or Taoism (道家) during the Han Dynasty, a dominance which continued for much of the next two millennia. Confucius' thoughts have been developed into a system of philosophy known as Confucianism (儒家, Rujia, sometimes also "Ruism" in English).

It was introduced to Europe by the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who was the first to Latinise the name as "Confucius." The first translation into a Western language was into Latin as "Confucius Sinarum" ("Confucius, Philosopher of the Chinese"), which was translated by a group of Jesuit monks led by Philippe Couplet and published in the year 1687.

His teachings are embodied in three key documents, the authorship and dates of which are all disputed. The most important of these, The Analects of Confucius (论语 Lunyu), is a collection of "brief aphoristic fragments", which was compiled by his disciples, possibly many years after his death. The same holds for the two other books of the classic Confucian canon: the Doctrine of the Mean (中庸 Zhongyong) and the Great Learning (大学 Daxue). The Analects were the most important element of the imperial examinations which served as the main determiner for the placement in government positions of hopeful students for around one thousand years until their end in the early 1900s.

Many translations have been made of the works of Confucius into English. Perhaps the most influential have been those of James Legge, and later that of Arthur Waley. Both of these are good for exploring the interpretations and history of the original Chinese text. Versions of both of their translations were originally presented side by side with the Chinese texts, which is very helpful for anyone hoping to the learn the language or understand its structure or the difficulties of rendering it into English. Dozens of more modern translations have also been made, one of the most esteemed by DC Lau.

The Chinese government have set up a large number of Confucius Institutes around the world for people to learn Chinese language and culture. He has enjoyed a great resurgence in popularity in recent years, especially within China itself, having been "rehabilitated" and reclaimed by the government in the last 30 years. From the fall of the Qing dynasty through to Mao's death in 1976, Confucius was often denounced and blamed, both for the weak position of China that allowed the foreign nations to dominate over China and for helping to maintain the long-standing structure of society in which the peasants were exploited by the noblemen and government officials. Today his works are again taught at schools in China, and he is seen as a founding father of the Chinese identity and cultural tradition.