This article is about what the Bible says. For how this relates to history, see The Bible and history.
When the disruption took place at Shechem, at first only the tribe of Judah followed the house of David. But very soon after the tribe of Benjamin joined the tribe of Judah, and Jerusalem became the capital of the new kingdom (Joshua 18:28), which was called the kingdom of Judah.
For the first sixty years the kings of Judah aimed at re-establishing their authority over the kingdom of the other ten tribes, so that there was a state of perpetual war between them. For the next eighty years there was no open war between them. For the most part they were in friendly alliance, co-operating against their common enemies, especially against Damascus. For about another century and a half Judah had a somewhat checkered existence after the termination of the kingdom of Israel till its final overthrow in the destruction of the temple (586 BC) by Nebuzar-adan, who was captain of Nebuchadnezzar's body-guard (2 Kings 25:8-21).
The kingdom maintained a separate existence for three hundred and eighty-nine years. It occupied an area of 8,900 km2 (3,435 square miles).
The kings of Judah
For this period, most historians follow either the chronology established by William F. Albright or E. R. Thiele, both of which are shown below. (Albright's dates are in bold while Thiele's are in italics.) A significant minority hold that many of the rulers of this period are either legendary or fictional. All dates are BC/BCE.
(George Syncellus wrote that the First Olympiad took place in Uzziah's 48th regnal year.)
Hezekiah was contemporary with king Sennacherib of Assyria, and king Merodach-baladan of Babylonia. There is some question whether the latter kings can provide a reliable synchronism for his reign: Al-Biruni and Bar-Hebraeus mention a "King Sennacherib the Less" as well. Furthermore, there was another king named Merodakh Baladan ben Baladan, also known as Mardokempad. (Ptolemy assumed, without any reason, that Mordac Empadus was contemporary with King Hezekiah.) These two Baladans remained pretenders during Sennacherib's reign, therefore it is not easy to identify their regnal years as Ptolemy attempted. According to Robert R. Newton (The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, 1977), this ancient scholar frequently attributed some observations to certain years of some kings for the sake of simplicity in his tabulation, but those were not part of the original observations. Newton also asserts Ptolemy often arbitrarily fudged astronomical data in order to support his own theories.
King Josiah died in a battle against Necho II of Egypt.