Names of China
Encyclopedia
In China
, common names for China include Zhonghua (/) and Zhongguo (/), while Han (/) and Tang are common names given for the Chinese ethnicity. Other names include Huaxia, Shenzhou and Jiuzhou. The People's Republic of China
and Republic of China
("Taiwan
") are official names given for the two contemporary sovereign states currently claiming sovereignty
over the traditional area of China
. "Mainland China
" is used to refer to areas under the jurisdiction by the People's Republic of China usually excluding Hong Kong
and Macau
.
In other parts of the world, many names of China exist, mainly transliterations of the dynasties "Qin
" or "Jin" (e.g. China, Sino), and Han
or Tang
. There are also names for China based on a certain ethnic group other than Han
, much like the Western rendering of all Arabs as "Saracens". Examples include "Cathay
" based on the Khitan
and "Tabgach
" based on the Tuoba
.
, Hong Kong, Macau
and Taiwan
.
Zhonghua is a more literary term sometimes used synonymously with Zhongguo; it appears in the official names of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China
. Tang is used among southern Chinese, though some restrict the term further to refer to just the Cantonese
or some other south Chinese language group.
, and so forth, not Zhongguo. Although it was a common name often used in both Chinese and Western literature and references, only after 1911 it became the official one. Many Western works, however, use the term "middle kingdom" or "central kingdom."
The term "zhōngguó" first appeared in text form in the Classic of History
as the name for "the centre of civilization" or "Tianxia", depending on the interpretation. The first appearance of (中國) in an artifact was in the Western Zhou
vessel He zun
.
The general concept of the term "zhōngguó" originates from the belief that the Zhou Dynasty
is the "centre of civilization" or "centre of the world", much like the "Middle Earth
" concept of Europeans, while the ethnic groups in the four cardinals are called Eastern Yi
, Southern Man
, Western Rong and Northern Di
respectively. However, there are different uses of the name "zhōngguó" in every period. It could refer to the guó (capital) of the Emperor, to distinguish from the guó of his vassals, as in Western Zhou
; or it could refer to states in Central China, to distinguish from states in outer regions. It is also used, in later dynasties, by states who see themselves as the "legitimate" successors of previous dynasties, as in the case of the Southern Song Dynasty. Finally, it is used to mean the sovereignty in the traditional area "zhōngyuán (中原)" or "zhōnghuá
(中華)", which both have the same origins, such as in the case of the Republic of China
("Zhōnghuá Mínguó (中华民国/中華民國)") and the People's Republic of China ("Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó (中华人民共和国/中華人民共和國)").
The Chinese character "guó" (国/國) originally had a different meaning from the English "state" or the modern Chinese concept "guójiā" (国家/國家), though it is taken to mean "state" today. In its origin, it refers to the area where the Tiānzǐ lives, while the outer areas governed by the same sovereign is called "yě" (野). For example, a riot of nobles living in the capital of Western Zhou
is called "the Riot of the guó people". Gradually, the vassal states of the Tiānzǐ began to use the name "guó" as well. The Book of Han
talked about an incident where the Gōng
of one of the vassal states loved feeding cranes
and gave them official posts in the government. "When the Northern Di
attacked, the guó people were unwilling to fight, and the guó was destroyed." Thus, there was the need to classify the "guó" of the Tiānzǐ from that of the Gōng. Gradually, the name "zhōngguó" is used to refer to the "guó" of the Tiānzǐ. Mao Heng of the Han Dynasty
gave an explanation: "Zhōngguó: the capital."
During the Spring and Autumn Period, it was used only to describe the states politically descended from the Western Zhou Dynasty
, in the Yellow River
(Huang He) valley, to the exclusion of states such as the Chu
along the Yangtze River
and the Qin
to the west. However, by the time of the Han Dynasty
, the states of Chu, Qin and others had linked themselves to the politics of "Zhōngguó" and were already considered integral parts of a newer "Zhōngguó". This usage of "Zhōngguó" has been translated into English as "the Central States."
By the Han Dynasty
, three usages of "Zhōngguó" are common. The Book of Poetry
explicitly gives this definition that "Zhōngguó" is the capital; the Records of the Grand Historian
uses the concept that China is the centre of civilization: "Eight famous mountains are there in Tianxia. Three are in Man
and Yi
. Five are in Zhōnghuá." The Records of Three Kingdoms
uses the concept of the central states in "Zhōnghuá", or the states in "Zhōnghuá" which is the centre, depending on the interpretation. It records the following monologue: "If we can lead the host of Wu
and Yue to oppose Zhōngguó, then let us break off relations with them soon." In this sense, the term Zhōngguó is synonymous with Zhōnghuá (中华/中華) and Huáxià (华夏/華夏), a name for "China" that comes from the Xia Dynasty
.
During the period of division after the fall of the Han Dynasty, the term Zhōngguó was subjected to denote political legitimacy apart from the previous usages. It was used in this manner from the tenth century onwards by the competing dynasties of Liao
, Jin and Song
. The term Zhōngguó came to be related to geographic, cultural and political identity and less to ethnic origin.
Zhōngguó quickly came to include areas farther south, as the cultural and political unit (not yet a "nation" in the modern sense) spread to include the Yangtze River
and Pearl River
systems. By the Tang Dynasty
it sometimes included barbarian
regimes such as the Xianbei
and Xiongnu
, which submitted to the Han people
.
In the nineteenth century, the term changed in its significance. The late Qing reformer Liang Qichao
argued in a famous passage that "our greatest shame is that our country has no name. The names that people ordinarily think of, such as Xia, Han, or Tang, are all the titles of bygone dynasties." Another reformer wrote that the other countries of the world "all boast of their own state names, such as England and France, the only exception being the Central States." Liang argued that in order to preserve the race (minzu, a term which he adopted from the Japanese usage) that the concept tianxia had to be abandoned in favor of guojia, that is, "nation," for which he accepted the term Zhongguo.
Finally, since the May Fourth Movement
, educated students began to spread the concept of Zhōnghuá (中华/中華), which represented the people, including 56 minor ethnic groups and the Han Chinese
, with a single culture identifying themselves as "Chinese". The Republic of China and the People's Republic of China both used the title "Zhōnghuá" in their official names. Thus, "Zhōngguó" became the official names for both sovereigns. Overseas Chinese
are referred to as huaqiao (华侨/華僑), literally "Chinese overseas", or huayi (华裔/華裔), literally "Chinese descendant" (i.e., Chinese children born overseas).
"Zhōngguó" in different languages:
"Zhōnghuá" in different languages:
, who presided over China's first golden age. During the Sixteen Kingdoms
and Southern and Northern Dynasties
periods, various non-Chinese ethnic groups invaded from the north and conquered areas of North China, which they held for several centuries. It was during this period that people began to use the term "Han" to refer to the natives of North China, who (unlike the invaders) were the descendants of the subjects of the Han Dynasty
.
During the Yuan Dynasty Mongolian ruler divided people into four classes: Mongolians, "Color-eyeds", Hans, and "Southerns". Northern Chinese were called Han, which was considered to be the highest class of Chinese. It must be noted that this class "Han" includes all ethnic groups in northern China including Khitan and Jurchen who have in most part sinicized during the last two hundreds years. The name "Han" became popularly accepted.
During the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu rulers also used the name Han to distinguish the local Chinese from the Manchus. After the fall of the Qing government, the Han became the name of a nationality within China.
Today the term "Han Persons", often rendered in English as Han Chinese
, is used by the People's Republic of China to refer to the most populous of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups of China. The "Han Chinese" are simply referred to as "Chinese" by some.
: tong4) comes from the Tang Dynasty
(唐朝), who presided over China's second golden age. It was during the Tang Dynasty that South China was finally and fully Sinicized; hence it is usually South Chinese who refer to themselves as "Tang". For example, Chinatown
s worldwide are usually referred to generally as Tong-yan-gaai/Tng-lang-kay (唐人街; ), or "Street of Tang People", while China is called Tong-saan/Tng-sua (唐山), or "Tang Mountain".
Among Taiwanese, Tangshan has been used, for example, in the saying, "has Tangshan father, no Tangshan mother" (有唐山公、無唐山媽). This refers how the Han people crossing the Taiwan Strait
were mostly men, whereas their offspring would be through marriage with Taiwanese aborigine women.
in Chinese text, is the combination of two words:
This word has been widely used to refer to the Huang He river valley, by analogy with Zhonghua, which means "middle prosper", before Han became popular.
"; and Tianchao (天朝) means "Heavenly Dynasty". These terms were usually used in the context of civil war
s or periods of division, in which whoever ends up reunifying China is said to have ruled Tianxia, or everything under heaven. This fits with the traditional Chinese theory of rulership in which the emperor was nominally the political leader of the entire world and not merely the leader of a nation-state within the world.
of China. During that time, the Huang He river region was divided into nine geographical regions; thus this name was coined. (Consult Zhou
for more information.)
for China in contemporary Chinese text. It was thought that the world was divided into nine major states, one of which is Shenzhou, which is in turn divided into nine smaller states, one of which is Jiuzhou mentioned above.
and Taiwan
. This term is used in official context in both the mainland and Taiwan, when referring to the mainland as opposed to Taiwan. Often also called 内地； ) by Hong Kongers.
as a positive political and social term contrasting pre-1949 China (the establishment of the PRC) and the new socialist state. This term is also sometimes used by writers outside mainland China. The PRC was known to many in the West during the Cold War
as "Communist China" or "Red China" to distinguish it from the Republic of China
which is commonly called "Taiwan", "Nationalist China" or "Free China". In some contexts, particularly in economics, trade, and sports, "China" is often used to refer to mainland China
to the exclusion of Hong Kong, Macau
and Taiwan
. In reporting by western news services, "China" typically refers to the People's Republic of China including Hong Kong and Macau, particularly when reporting politics.
The official name of the People's Republic of China in various official languages and scripts.
} - Official in Tibet Government-in-Exile
- Official in Xinjiang
Other languages:
has sometimes been referred to as "Republican China", in contrast to the empire it replaced
, or as "Nationalist China", after the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang
). It has also been referred to as the "Chinese Republic". Since the separation from mainland China since 1949 due to the Chinese Civil War
, the territory of the Republic of China has largely been confined to the island of Taiwan
(acquired in 1945 by the result of World War II) and a few other small islands. Thus, the country is often commonly referred to as simply "Taiwan", although this may not be perceived as politically neutral. (See Taiwan Independence
.) Amid the hostile rhetoric of the Cold War
, the government sometimes referred to itself as "Free China", in contrast to communist People's Republic of China. Democratized in 1996.
The official name of the Republic of China
in various languages
and Southeast Asia, are usually derived directly from words in a language of China learned through the land-route. Those languages belonging to a former dependency (tributary) or Chinese-influenced country have a pronunciation especially similar pronunciation to that of Chinese. Those used in Indo-European languages
, however, have indirect names that came via the sea-route and bear little resemblance to what is used in China.
's early 14th-century Il Milione, which used "Chin" as a transcription of Middle Persian
Ṣīn (چین), from Sanskrit
Cina . The traditional etymology, proposed in the 17th century by Martin Martini and supported by many later scholars including Paul Pelliot
is that the word is derived from the Qin state
or dynasty
' onMouseout='HidePop("42948")' href="/topics/Old_Chinese">Old Chinese
: *dzin) which ruled China from 221206 BC. This is still the most widely accepted theory. However, the Sanskrit name appears in both the Laws of Manu
and the Mahabhārata
in reference to a state located in the Tibetan-Burman borderlands. Another theory proposed by Geoff Wade is that this word is derived from Yelang
, an ancient kingdom in present-day Guizhou
whose inhabitants referred to themselves as Zina.
Barbosa (1516) and Garcia de Orta
(1563) mentioned China.
and Roman
name for the northwestern part of China and its inhabitants. It meant "of silk," or "land where silk comes from." The name is thought to derive from the Chinese word for silk, "si" . It is itself at the origin of the Latin
for silk, "serica". See the main article Seres
for more details.
This may be a back formation from serikos (σηρικος), "made of silk", from sêr (σηρ), "silkworm," in which case Seres is "the land where silk comes from."
This name is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible
in Genesis 10:17, where it is said that the Sinites are descendants of Canaan
, the son of Ham
.
It's thought that this term may have come to Europe through the Arabs, who made the China of the farther east into Sin, and perhaps sometimes into Thin. Hence the Thin of the author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
, who appears to be the first extant writer to employ the name in this form; hence also the Sinæ and Thinae of Ptolemy
.
Some denied that Ptolemy's Sinæ really represented the Chinese. But if we compare the statement of Marcianus of Heraclea (a condenser of Ptolemy), when he tells us that the "nations of the Sinae lie at the extremity of the habitable world, and adjoin the eastern Terra Incognita
," with that of Cosmas Indicopleustes
, who says, in speaking of Tzinista, a name understood as referring to China, that "beyond this there is neither habitation nor navigation", it seems probable that the same region is meant by both. Ptolemy's misrendering of the Indian Sea as a closed basin—i.e., placing the Chinese coast along its eastern boundary—should not necessarily be seen as a counterargument, as also he described what is unmistakably India with similarly erroneous geography. Most scholars still believe Sinæ is China.
in the eastern extremity of the inhabitable world. References to the Sinae include mention of a city that the Romans called Sera Metropolis, which is modern Chang'an
. Although the name Sinae appears to be derived from the same etymological source as the Latin prefixes Sino- and Sin-, which are traditionally used to refer to China and the Chinese, there is some controversy as to the ultimate origin of these terms, as their use in historical texts of classical antiquity in the West appears to antedate the emergence of the Qin Dynasty
and its empire, the name of which has often been cited as the source of Latin Sino- and Sin-.
English, most Indo-European languages
, and many others use various forms of the name "China" and the prefix "Sino-" or "Sin-". These forms are thought to be probably derived from the name of the Qin Dynasty that first unified the country (221–206 BCE). The Qin Dynasty unified the written language in China and gave the supreme ruler of China the title of "Emperor" instead of "King," thus the subsequent Silk Road
traders may have identified themselves by that name.
The term "China" can also be used to refer to:
In economic contexts, "Greater China
" (大中华地区/大中華地區, dà Zhōnghhuá dìqū) is intended to be a neutral and non-political way to refer to Mainland China
, Hong Kong, Macau
and Taiwan
.
Sinologists usually use "Chinese" in a more restricted sense, akin to the classical usage of Zhongguo 中国, to the Han
ethnic group, which makes up the bulk of the population in China and of the overseas Chinese
.
Kina is used to refer to China in North Europe now and the pronunciation is [ʃina]. This name still comes from the Qin Dynasty
. In Swedish
, Kinesiska means Chinese, the language used in Kina.
, an ethnic group that originated in Manchuria
and conquered parts of Northern China. Due to long domination of Northern China by these non-Chinese conquerors, it was considered by northwestern people as the land of the Khitan. In English and in several other European languages, the name "Cathay" became widely used for all of China largely as a result of translations of the adventures of Marco Polo
, which used this word for northern China.
There is no evidence that either in the 13th or 14th century, Cathayans, i.e. Chinese, travelled officially to Europe, but it is possible that some did, in unofficial capacity, at least in the 13th century. For, during the campaigns of Hulagu (the grandson of Genghis Khan
) in Persia (1256–65), and the reigns of his successors, Chinese engineer
s were employed on the banks of the Tigris
, and Chinese astrologer
s and physicians could be consulted. Many diplomatic communications passed between the Hulaguid Ilkhans and the Christian princes. The former, as the great khan's liegemen, still received from him their seals
of state; and two of their letters which survive in the archives of France exhibit the vermilion impressions of those seals in Chinese character
s -- perhaps affording the earliest specimen of those characters which reached western Europe.
" came from the metatheses of "Tuoba
" (*takbat), a dominant tribe of the Xianbei
, and the surname of the Northern Wei
Dynasty in the 5th century before sinicisation. It referred to Northern China, which was dominated by half-Xianbei, half-Chinese people.
: Nikan was a Manchu ethnonym of unknown origin that referred specifically to the ethnic group known in English as the Han Chinese
; the stem of this word was also conjugated as a verb, nikara(-mbi), and used to mean "to speak the Chinese language
." Since Nikan was essentially an ethnonym
and referred to a group of people (i.e., a nation
) rather than to a political body (i.e., a state
), the correct translation of "China" into the Manchu language is Nikan gurun, literally the "Nikan state" or "country of the Nikans" (i.e., country of the Hans).
This exonym for the Han Chinese is also used in the Daur language
, in which it appears as Niaken ([njakən] or [ɲakən]). As in the case of the Manchu language, the Daur word Niaken is essentially an ethnonym, and the proper way to refer to the country of the Han Chinese (i.e., "China" in a cultural sense) is Niaken gurun, while niakendaaci- is a verb meaning "to talk in Chinese."
as 唐 or 漢). An identical name was used by the ancient and medieval Japanese to refer to the country that is now known as Korea
, and many Japanese historians and linguists believe that the word "Kara" referring to China and/or Korea may have derived from a metonymic
extension of the appellation of the ancient city-states of Gaya
.
The Japanese word karate
(空手, lit. "empty hand"), referring to a form of martial arts, was earlier also written as 唐手 (lit. "Chinese hand") in respect of its Chinese origin.
as 唐 or 唐土). This obsolete Japanese name for China is believed to have derived from a kun reading of the Chinese compound 諸越 Zhūyuè or 百越
Bǎiyuè as "all the Yue" or "the hundred (i.e., myriad, various, or numerous) Yue," which was an ancient Chinese name for the societies of the regions that are now southern China.
The Japanese common noun tōmorokoshi (トウモロコシ, 玉蜀黍), which refers to maize
, appears to contain an element cognate with the proper noun formerly used in reference to China. Although tōmorokoshi is traditionally written with Chinese characters that literally mean "jade Shu
millet
," the etymology of the Japanese word appears to go back to "Tang morokoshi," in which "morokoshi" was the obsolete Japanese name for China as well as the Japanese word for sorghum
, which seems to have been introduced into Japan from China.
weakened the dogma that China should be unified, and it was common for a time to call the politically disparate North and South by different names. While Northern China was called Cathay, Southern China was referred to as Mangi. Manzi often appears in documents of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty
. The Mongols also called Southern Chinese "Nangkiyas" or "Nangkiyad", and considered them ethnically distinct from North Chinese. As Marco Polo used it, the word "Manzi" reached the Western world as "Mangi" (Machin). The Chinese, themselves, saw "Mangi" as a derogation and never used it as self appellation.
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, common names for China include Zhonghua (/) and Zhongguo (/), while Han (/) and Tang are common names given for the Chinese ethnicity. Other names include Huaxia, Shenzhou and Jiuzhou. The People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
and Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
("Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
") are official names given for the two contemporary sovereign states currently claiming sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
over the traditional area of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. "Mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
" is used to refer to areas under the jurisdiction by the People's Republic of China usually excluding Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
.
In other parts of the world, many names of China exist, mainly transliterations of the dynasties "Qin
Qin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...
" or "Jin" (e.g. China, Sino), and Han
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
or Tang
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
. There are also names for China based on a certain ethnic group other than Han
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
, much like the Western rendering of all Arabs as "Saracens". Examples include "Cathay
Cathay
Cathay is the Anglicized version of "Catai" and an alternative name for China in English. It originates from the word Khitan, the name of a nomadic people who founded the Liao Dynasty which ruled much of Northern China from 907 to 1125, and who had a state of their own centered around today's...
" based on the Khitan
Khitan language
The Khitan language is a now-extinct language once spoken by the Khitan people . Khitan is generally deemed to be genetically linked to the Mongolic languages. It was written using two mutually exclusive writing systems known as the Khitan large script and the Khitan small script...
and "Tabgach
Tabgach
Tabgach was a Turkic title for the tribe called in Chinese Tuoba that headed a powerful Xianbei tribe. It is also the Turkic name for the Tang Dynasty in Tangri Bilge's Orkhon inscriptions...
" based on the Tuoba
Tuoba
Tuoba, or Tabgach, were a clan of Xianbei people of ancient China.-Xianbei Tuoba:Tuoba was a clan of the Xianbei people in the early centuries of the 1st millennium AD. They established the State of Dai from 310 to 376 AD, and the Northern Wei Dynasty from 386 to 536 AD...
.
Sinitic names
In mainland China, the term Zhongguo is used to refer to all territories claimed by the PRC, including mainland ChinaMainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, Hong Kong, Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
.
Zhonghua is a more literary term sometimes used synonymously with Zhongguo; it appears in the official names of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
. Tang is used among southern Chinese, though some restrict the term further to refer to just the Cantonese
Cantonese people
The Cantonese people are Han people whose ancestral homes are in Guangdong, China. The term "Cantonese people" would then be synonymous with the Bun Dei sub-ethnic group, and is sometimes known as Gwong Fu Jan for this narrower definition...
or some other south Chinese language group.
Zhongguo and Zhonghua
China is called Zhōngguó in Mandarin Chinese. The first character zhōng (中) means "central" or "middle," while guó (國/国) means "state" or "states," and in modern times, "nation." In ancient texts, Zhongguo, which can be either singular or plural, referred to the group of states in the central plain or to a state or city. The official name of the imperial dynasties referred to the Empire of the Great Qing, Empire of the Great MingMing Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
, and so forth, not Zhongguo. Although it was a common name often used in both Chinese and Western literature and references, only after 1911 it became the official one. Many Western works, however, use the term "middle kingdom" or "central kingdom."
The term "zhōngguó" first appeared in text form in the Classic of History
Classic of History
The Classic of History is a compilation of documentary records related to events in ancient history of China. It is also commonly known as the Shàngshū , or simply Shū...
as the name for "the centre of civilization" or "Tianxia", depending on the interpretation. The first appearance of (中國) in an artifact was in the Western Zhou
Western Zhou
The Western Zhōu period was the first half of the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China. It began when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang Dynasty at the Battle of Muye. C.H...
vessel He zun
He zun
The He zun was an ancient Chinese bronze zun vessel. Its origin is more than 2,700 years old from the era of Western Zhou. It is the oldest artifact that inscribed the word "Middle Kingdom/China " in the container. Today it is stored at the Shaanxi, Baoji Museum .-Dimension and significance:The...
.
The general concept of the term "zhōngguó" originates from the belief that the Zhou Dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...
is the "centre of civilization" or "centre of the world", much like the "Middle Earth
Midgard
Midgard is one of the Nine Worlds and is an old Germanic name for our world and is the home of Humans, with the literal meaning "middle enclosure".-Etymology:...
" concept of Europeans, while the ethnic groups in the four cardinals are called Eastern Yi
Dongyi
Dongyi was a collective term for people in eastern China and in lands located to the east of ancient China. People referred to as Dongyi vary across the ages.The early Dongyi culture was one of earliest neolithic cultures in China....
, Southern Man
Nanman
Nanman were aboriginal tribes who lived in southwestern China. They may have been related to the Sanmiao, dated to around the 3rd century BC. The Nanman were multiple ethnic groups including the Miao, the Kinh, the Thai, and some Tibeto-Burman groups such as the Bai. There was never a single...
, Western Rong and Northern Di
Beidi
Beidi or Northern Di were groups of people who lived to the north of what was then China during the Zhou Dynasty. By the end of the dynasty they were mostly conquered or absorbed by the Chinese....
respectively. However, there are different uses of the name "zhōngguó" in every period. It could refer to the guó (capital) of the Emperor, to distinguish from the guó of his vassals, as in Western Zhou
Western Zhou
The Western Zhōu period was the first half of the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China. It began when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang Dynasty at the Battle of Muye. C.H...
; or it could refer to states in Central China, to distinguish from states in outer regions. It is also used, in later dynasties, by states who see themselves as the "legitimate" successors of previous dynasties, as in the case of the Southern Song Dynasty. Finally, it is used to mean the sovereignty in the traditional area "zhōngyuán (中原)" or "zhōnghuá
Zhonghua
Zhonghua or Chung-hua may refer to:*China, in a cultural, literary sense *Huaxia - a name representing the Chinese civilisation*Zhonghua minzu , literally the Chinese nation...
(中華)", which both have the same origins, such as in the case of the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
("Zhōnghuá Mínguó (中华民国/中華民國)") and the People's Republic of China ("Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó (中华人民共和国/中華人民共和國)").
The Chinese character "guó" (国/國) originally had a different meaning from the English "state" or the modern Chinese concept "guójiā" (国家/國家), though it is taken to mean "state" today. In its origin, it refers to the area where the Tiānzǐ lives, while the outer areas governed by the same sovereign is called "yě" (野). For example, a riot of nobles living in the capital of Western Zhou
Western Zhou
The Western Zhōu period was the first half of the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China. It began when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang Dynasty at the Battle of Muye. C.H...
is called "the Riot of the guó people". Gradually, the vassal states of the Tiānzǐ began to use the name "guó" as well. The Book of Han
Book of Han
The Book of Han, Hanshu or History of the Former Han Dynasty |Fan Ye]] . Various scholars have estimated that the earliest material covered in the book dates back to between 206 and 202 BCE...
talked about an incident where the Gōng
Duke
A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...
of one of the vassal states loved feeding cranes
Crane (bird)
Cranes are a family, Gruidae, of large, long-legged and long-necked birds in the order Gruiformes. There are fifteen species of crane in four genera. Unlike the similar-looking but unrelated herons, cranes fly with necks outstretched, not pulled back...
and gave them official posts in the government. "When the Northern Di
Beidi
Beidi or Northern Di were groups of people who lived to the north of what was then China during the Zhou Dynasty. By the end of the dynasty they were mostly conquered or absorbed by the Chinese....
attacked, the guó people were unwilling to fight, and the guó was destroyed." Thus, there was the need to classify the "guó" of the Tiānzǐ from that of the Gōng. Gradually, the name "zhōngguó" is used to refer to the "guó" of the Tiānzǐ. Mao Heng of the Han Dynasty
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
gave an explanation: "Zhōngguó: the capital."
During the Spring and Autumn Period, it was used only to describe the states politically descended from the Western Zhou Dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...
, in the Yellow River
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...
(Huang He) valley, to the exclusion of states such as the Chu
Chu (state)
The State of Chu was a Zhou Dynasty vassal state in present-day central and southern China during the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States Period . Its ruling house had the surname Nai , and clan name Yan , later evolved to surname Mi , and clan name Xiong...
along the Yangtze River
Yangtze River
The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...
and the Qin
Qin (state)
The State of Qin was a Chinese feudal state that existed during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods of Chinese history...
to the west. However, by the time of the Han Dynasty
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
, the states of Chu, Qin and others had linked themselves to the politics of "Zhōngguó" and were already considered integral parts of a newer "Zhōngguó". This usage of "Zhōngguó" has been translated into English as "the Central States."
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
, three usages of "Zhōngguó" are common. The Book of Poetry
Shi Jing
The Classic of Poetry , translated variously as the Book of Songs, the Book of Odes, and often known simply as its original name The Odes, is the earliest existing collection of Chinese poems and songs. It comprises 305 poems and songs, with many range from the 10th to the 7th centuries BC...
explicitly gives this definition that "Zhōngguó" is the capital; the Records of the Grand Historian
Records of the Grand Historian
The Records of the Grand Historian, also known in English by the Chinese name Shiji , written from 109 BC to 91 BC, was the Magnum opus of Sima Qian, in which he recounted Chinese history from the time of the Yellow Emperor until his own time...
uses the concept that China is the centre of civilization: "Eight famous mountains are there in Tianxia. Three are in Man
Nanman
Nanman were aboriginal tribes who lived in southwestern China. They may have been related to the Sanmiao, dated to around the 3rd century BC. The Nanman were multiple ethnic groups including the Miao, the Kinh, the Thai, and some Tibeto-Burman groups such as the Bai. There was never a single...
and Yi
Dongyi
Dongyi was a collective term for people in eastern China and in lands located to the east of ancient China. People referred to as Dongyi vary across the ages.The early Dongyi culture was one of earliest neolithic cultures in China....
. Five are in Zhōnghuá." The Records of Three Kingdoms
Records of Three Kingdoms
Records of Three Kingdoms , is regarded as the official and authoritative historical text on the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history covering the years 184-280 CE. Written by Chen Shou in the 3rd century, the work combines the smaller histories of the rival states of Cao Wei , Shu Han and...
uses the concept of the central states in "Zhōnghuá", or the states in "Zhōnghuá" which is the centre, depending on the interpretation. It records the following monologue: "If we can lead the host of Wu
Wu (region)
Wu is a region in the Jiangnan area , surrounding Suzhou, in Jiangsu province and Zhejiang province of China. It is also the abbreviation of several kingdoms based in Wu. The two largest cities in the Wu region today are Shanghai and Hangzhou...
and Yue to oppose Zhōngguó, then let us break off relations with them soon." In this sense, the term Zhōngguó is synonymous with Zhōnghuá (中华/中華) and Huáxià (华夏/華夏), a name for "China" that comes from the Xia Dynasty
Xia Dynasty
The Xia Dynasty is the first dynasty in China to be described in ancient historical chronicles such as Bamboo Annals, Classic of History and Records of the Grand Historian. The Xia Dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him...
.
During the period of division after the fall of the Han Dynasty, the term Zhōngguó was subjected to denote political legitimacy apart from the previous usages. It was used in this manner from the tenth century onwards by the competing dynasties of Liao
Liao Dynasty
The Liao Dynasty , also known as the Khitan Empire was an empire in East Asia that ruled over the regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and parts of northern China proper between 9071125...
, Jin and Song
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
. The term Zhōngguó came to be related to geographic, cultural and political identity and less to ethnic origin.
Zhōngguó quickly came to include areas farther south, as the cultural and political unit (not yet a "nation" in the modern sense) spread to include the Yangtze River
Yangtze River
The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...
and Pearl River
Pearl River (China)
The Pearl River or less commonly, the "Guangdong River" or "Canton River" etc., , is an extensive river system in southern China. The name Pearl River is usually used as a catchment term to refer to the watersheds of the Xi Jiang , the Bei Jiang , and the Dong Jiang...
systems. By the Tang Dynasty
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
it sometimes included barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
regimes such as the Xianbei
Xianbei
The Xianbei were a significant Mongolic nomadic people residing in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and eastern Mongolia. The title “Khan” was first used among the Xianbei.-Origins:...
and Xiongnu
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu were ancient nomadic-based people that formed a state or confederation north of the agriculture-based empire of the Han Dynasty. Most of the information on the Xiongnu comes from Chinese sources...
, which submitted to the Han people
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
.
In the nineteenth century, the term changed in its significance. The late Qing reformer Liang Qichao
Liang Qichao
Liang Qichao |Styled]] Zhuoru, ; Pseudonym: Rengong) was a Chinese scholar, journalist, philosopher and reformist during the Qing Dynasty , who inspired Chinese scholars with his writings and reform movements...
argued in a famous passage that "our greatest shame is that our country has no name. The names that people ordinarily think of, such as Xia, Han, or Tang, are all the titles of bygone dynasties." Another reformer wrote that the other countries of the world "all boast of their own state names, such as England and France, the only exception being the Central States." Liang argued that in order to preserve the race (minzu, a term which he adopted from the Japanese usage) that the concept tianxia had to be abandoned in favor of guojia, that is, "nation," for which he accepted the term Zhongguo.
Finally, since the May Fourth Movement
May Fourth Movement
The May Fourth Movement was an anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement growing out of student demonstrations in Beijing on May 4, 1919, protesting the Chinese government's weak response to the Treaty of Versailles, especially the Shandong Problem...
, educated students began to spread the concept of Zhōnghuá (中华/中華), which represented the people, including 56 minor ethnic groups and the Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
, with a single culture identifying themselves as "Chinese". The Republic of China and the People's Republic of China both used the title "Zhōnghuá" in their official names. Thus, "Zhōngguó" became the official names for both sovereigns. Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
are referred to as huaqiao (华侨/華僑), literally "Chinese overseas", or huayi (华裔/華裔), literally "Chinese descendant" (i.e., Chinese children born overseas).
"Zhōngguó" in different languages:
- FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: Empire du Milieu (literally: "Middle Empire") - DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: Rijk van het Midden (literally: "Middle Empire") - FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
: Keskustan valtakunta (literally: "The State of the Center") - GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Reich der Mitte (literally: "Middle Empire") - ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
: Impero di Mezzo (literally: "Middle Empire") - JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
: Chūgoku (中国; ちゅうごく) - KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
: Jungguk, Chungguk (중국; 中國) - IndonesianIndonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
: Tiongkok (from Tiong-kok, the HokkienHokkienHokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....
name for China) - KazakhKazakh languageKazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....
: Juñgo (جۇڭگو) - HmongHmong languageHmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
: Suav Teb, Roob Kub, Tuam Choj, 中國. literally: Land of China, The Golden Throne, (Land of the)Stepped Bridge. - LiHlai languageHlai is one of two languages of the Hlai or Li people, the other being the Jiamao "dialect". It is spoken by 600,000 people , a quarter of them monolingual, in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan Island...
: Dongxgok - ManchuManchu languageManchu is a Tungusic endangered language spoken in Northeast China; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus...
: (Dulimbai gurun)Dulimbai gurun, rendered in Unicode as , is the official name for "China" in Manchu languageManchu languageManchu is a Tungusic endangered language spoken in Northeast China; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus...
. - MongolMongolian languageThe Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
: (Dumdadu ulus)Dumdadu ulus, rendered in Unicode as , is the official name for "China" used in Inner MongoliaInner MongoliaInner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
, whilst Хятад Улс (Khyatad uls) is the name for China within the State of MongoliaMongoliaMongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
. The former is a derivative of Middle Kingdom, whilst the latter is a derivative of Cathay. - PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
: Państwo Środka - RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Срединное Царство (Sredínnoye Tsárstvo) (literary: "Middle Empire"); Поднебесная (Podnebésnaya) - related to 天下 (Tiānxià). - TibetanTibetan languageThe Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...
: Krung-go - UyghurUyghur languageUyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...
: Junggo - VietnameseVietnamese languageVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
: Trung Quốc (中國) - ZhuangStandard ZhuangThe standard Zhuang language is the variety of Zhuang spoken in Wuming County in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, where it is an official language.-Classification:...
: Cunghgoz (older orthography: Cungƅgoƨ)
"Zhōnghuá" in different languages:
- JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
: Chūka (中華; ちゅうか) - KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
: Junghwa, Chunghwa (중화; 中華) - KazakhKazakh languageKazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....
: Juñxwa (حالىق) - LiHlai languageHlai is one of two languages of the Hlai or Li people, the other being the Jiamao "dialect". It is spoken by 600,000 people , a quarter of them monolingual, in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan Island...
: Dongxhwax - IndonesianIndonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
: Tionghoa (from Tiong-hôa, the HokkienHokkienHokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....
counterpart) - VietnameseVietnamese languageVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
: Trung Hoa (中華) - ZhuangStandard ZhuangThe standard Zhuang language is the variety of Zhuang spoken in Wuming County in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, where it is an official language.-Classification:...
: Cunghvaz (Old orthography: Cuŋƅvaƨ) - UyghurUyghur languageUyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...
: (Jungxua) - TibetanTibetan languageThe Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...
: (krung hwa)
Han
The name Han (漢/汉; ) comes from the Han DynastyHan Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
, who presided over China's first golden age. During the Sixteen Kingdoms
Sixteen Kingdoms
The Sixteen Kingdoms, or less commonly the Sixteen States, were a collection of numerous short-lived sovereign states in China proper and its neighboring areas from 304 to 439 AD after the retreat of the Jin Dynasty to South China and before the establishment of the Northern Dynasties...
and Southern and Northern Dynasties
Southern and Northern Dynasties
The Southern and Northern Dynasties was a period in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589 AD. Though an age of civil war and political chaos, it was also a time of flourishing arts and culture, advancement in technology, and the spreading of Mahayana Buddhism and Daoism...
periods, various non-Chinese ethnic groups invaded from the north and conquered areas of North China, which they held for several centuries. It was during this period that people began to use the term "Han" to refer to the natives of North China, who (unlike the invaders) were the descendants of the subjects of the Han Dynasty
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
.
During the Yuan Dynasty Mongolian ruler divided people into four classes: Mongolians, "Color-eyeds", Hans, and "Southerns". Northern Chinese were called Han, which was considered to be the highest class of Chinese. It must be noted that this class "Han" includes all ethnic groups in northern China including Khitan and Jurchen who have in most part sinicized during the last two hundreds years. The name "Han" became popularly accepted.
During the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu rulers also used the name Han to distinguish the local Chinese from the Manchus. After the fall of the Qing government, the Han became the name of a nationality within China.
Today the term "Han Persons", often rendered in English as Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
, is used by the People's Republic of China to refer to the most populous of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups of China. The "Han Chinese" are simply referred to as "Chinese" by some.
Tang
The name Tang (唐; ; JyutpingJyutping
Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: tong4) comes from the Tang Dynasty
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
(唐朝), who presided over China's second golden age. It was during the Tang Dynasty that South China was finally and fully Sinicized; hence it is usually South Chinese who refer to themselves as "Tang". For example, Chinatown
Chinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
s worldwide are usually referred to generally as Tong-yan-gaai/Tng-lang-kay (唐人街; ), or "Street of Tang People", while China is called Tong-saan/Tng-sua (唐山), or "Tang Mountain".
Among Taiwanese, Tangshan has been used, for example, in the saying, "has Tangshan father, no Tangshan mother" (有唐山公、無唐山媽). This refers how the Han people crossing the Taiwan Strait
Taiwan Strait
The Taiwan Strait or Formosa Strait, formerly known as the Black Ditch, is a 180-km-wide strait separating Mainland China and Taiwan. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to East China Sea to the northeast...
were mostly men, whereas their offspring would be through marriage with Taiwanese aborigine women.
- RyukyuanRyukyuan languagesThe Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the Ryukyu Islands, and make up a subgroup of the Japonic, itself controversially a subgroup of Altaic....
: 唐ぬ国 tō-nu-kuku, the RyukyuanRyukyu KingdomThe Ryūkyū Kingdom was an independent kingdom which ruled most of the Ryukyu Islands from the 15th century to the 19th century. The Kings of Ryūkyū unified Okinawa Island and extended the kingdom to the Amami Islands in modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture, and the Sakishima Islands near Taiwan...
name for China
Huaxia
The name Huaxia (华夏/華夏; ), generally used as a sobriquetSobriquet
A sobriquet is a nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another. It is usually a familiar name, distinct from a pseudonym assumed as a disguise, but a nickname which is familiar enough such that it can be used in place of a real name without the need of explanation...
in Chinese text, is the combination of two words:
- Hua which means prosper.
- Xia which could mean the Xia dynastyXia DynastyThe Xia Dynasty is the first dynasty in China to be described in ancient historical chronicles such as Bamboo Annals, Classic of History and Records of the Grand Historian. The Xia Dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him...
or grandiose.
This word has been widely used to refer to the Huang He river valley, by analogy with Zhonghua, which means "middle prosper", before Han became popular.
Tianxia and Tianchao
Tianxia (天下; ) literally means "under heavenAll under heaven
Tianxia is a phrase in the Chinese language and an ancient Chinese cultural concept that denoted either the entire geographical world or the metaphysical realm of mortals, and later became associated with political sovereignty.In ancient China, tianxia denoted the lands, space, and area divinely...
"; and Tianchao (天朝) means "Heavenly Dynasty". These terms were usually used in the context of civil war
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
s or periods of division, in which whoever ends up reunifying China is said to have ruled Tianxia, or everything under heaven. This fits with the traditional Chinese theory of rulership in which the emperor was nominally the political leader of the entire world and not merely the leader of a nation-state within the world.
Jiangshan
Jiangshan (江山; ) literally means "Rivers and mountains". This term is quite similar in usage to Tianxia, and simply refers to the entire world, and here the most prominent features of which being rivers and mountains. Use of this term is also common as part of the phrase "designing rivers and mountains" meaning maintaining and improving government and policy in the world.Jiuzhou
The name Jiuzhou (九州; ) means "nine domains". Widely used in pre-modern Chinese text, the word originated during the middle of Warring States PeriodWarring States Period
The Warring States Period , also known as the Era of Warring States, or the Warring Kingdoms period, covers the Iron Age period from about 475 BC to the reunification of China under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC...
of China. During that time, the Huang He river region was divided into nine geographical regions; thus this name was coined. (Consult Zhou
Zhou (political division)
Zhou were historical political divisions of China. Formally established during the Han Dynasty, zhou continued to exist until the establishment of the Republic of China — a period of over 2000 years...
for more information.)
Shenzhou
This name means Divine Land (神州; ) and comes from the same period as Jiuzhou. It is still the most used sobriquetSobriquet
A sobriquet is a nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another. It is usually a familiar name, distinct from a pseudonym assumed as a disguise, but a nickname which is familiar enough such that it can be used in place of a real name without the need of explanation...
for China in contemporary Chinese text. It was thought that the world was divided into nine major states, one of which is Shenzhou, which is in turn divided into nine smaller states, one of which is Jiuzhou mentioned above.
Sihai
This name, Four Seas (四海; ), is sometimes used to refer to the world, or simply China, which is perceived as the civilized world. It came from the ancient notion that the world is flat and surrounded by sea.Dalu
Dalu (大陆/大陸; ), literally "great land", means "continent" or "mainland". It is used as a short form of Zhōnggúo Dàlù (中国大陆/中國大陸, Mainland China), excluding Hong Kong, MacauMacau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. This term is used in official context in both the mainland and Taiwan, when referring to the mainland as opposed to Taiwan. Often also called 内地； ) by Hong Kongers.
People's Republic of China
The name New China has been frequently applied to China by the Communist Party of ChinaCommunist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
as a positive political and social term contrasting pre-1949 China (the establishment of the PRC) and the new socialist state. This term is also sometimes used by writers outside mainland China. The PRC was known to many in the West during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
as "Communist China" or "Red China" to distinguish it from the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
which is commonly called "Taiwan", "Nationalist China" or "Free China". In some contexts, particularly in economics, trade, and sports, "China" is often used to refer to mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
to the exclusion of Hong Kong, Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. In reporting by western news services, "China" typically refers to the People's Republic of China including Hong Kong and Macau, particularly when reporting politics.
The official name of the People's Republic of China in various official languages and scripts.
- Simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国 - Official language and script, used in Mainland ChinaMainland ChinaMainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, SingaporeSingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and Malaysia - Traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國 ' onMouseout='HidePop("11888")' href="/topics/Jyutping">JyutpingJyutpingJyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: zung1 waa4 jan4 man4 gung6 wo4 gwok3) - Official in TaiwanRepublic of ChinaThe Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
, Hong Kong, and MacauMacauMacau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China... - English: People's Republic of China - Official in Hong Kong.
- KazakhKazakh languageKazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....
: As used within Republic of KazakhstanKazakhstanKazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, Қытай Халық Республикасы (in Cyrillic script), Qıtay Xalıq Respwblïkası (in Latin script), قىتاي حالىق رەسپۋبلىيكاسى (in Arabic script); as used within People's Republic of China, Жұңxуа Халық Республикасы (in Cyrillic script), Juñxwa Xalıq Respwblïkası (in Latin script), جۇڭحۋا حالىق رەسپۋبليكاسى (in Arabic script). The Cyrillic script is the predominant script in the Republic of KazakhstanKazakhstanKazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, while the Arabic script is normally used for the Kazakh languageKazakh languageKazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....
in People's Republic of China. - KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
: 중화 인민 공화국 (Junghwa Inmin Gonghwaguk) - Used in Yanbian Korean Autonomous PrefectureYanbian Korean Autonomous PrefectureYanbian is a Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, in Northeastern China, above the border with North Korea. Yanbian is bordered to the north by Heilongjiang, on the west by Baishan City and Jilin City, on the south by North Hamgyong Province of North Korea, and on the east by Primorsky... - MongolianMongolian languageThe Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
: Rendered in Unicode as (Bügüde nayiramdaqu dumdadu arad ulus) - Official in Inner MongoliaInner MongoliaInner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
; Бүгд Найрамдах Хятад Ард Улс (Bügd Nairamdakh Khyatad Ard Uls) - used in MongoliaMongoliaMongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest... - PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
: República Popular da China - Official in MacauMacauMacau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
- Official in PRC's TibetTibet Autonomous RegionThe Tibet Autonomous Region , Tibet or Xizang for short, also called the Xizang Autonomous Region is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China , created in 1965....
} - Official in Tibet Government-in-Exile
Central Tibetan Administration
The Central Tibetan Administration , is an organisation based in India with the stated goals of "rehabilitating Tibetan refugees and restoring freedom and happiness in Tibet". It was established by the 14th Dalai Lama in 1959 shortly after his exile from Tibet...
- Official in Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
- ZaiwaZaiwa languageZaiwa is a language spoken in parts of China and Burma. There are around 100,000 speakers. It is also known as Atsi, its name in Jingpo. Zaiwa is a member of the Burmish languages.-References:...
: - Official in Dehong - ZhuangStandard ZhuangThe standard Zhuang language is the variety of Zhuang spoken in Wuming County in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, where it is an official language.-Classification:...
: Cunghvaz Yinzminz Gunghozgoz (Old orthography: Cuŋƅvaƨ Yinƨminƨ Guŋƅoƨ) - Official in GuangxiGuangxiGuangxi, formerly romanized Kwangsi, is a province of southern China along its border with Vietnam. In 1958, it became the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, a region with special privileges created specifically for the Zhuang people.Guangxi's location, in...
Other languages:
- Arabic: علم جمهورية الصين الشعبية
- BengaliBengali languageBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
: গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী চীন Gônoprojantontri Chin (People's Republic of China) or গণচীন Gônochin (People's China) - Bishnupriya Manipuri: গণচীনর জাতীয় ফিরালহান
- BurmeseBurmese languageThe Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Although the constitution officially recognizes it as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese. Burmese is the native language of the Bamar and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as...
: တရုတ်ပြည်သူ့သမ္မတနိုင်ငံ၏ - CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
: República Popular de la Xina - CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
: Čínská lidová republika - DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
: Folkerepublikken Kina - DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: Volksrepubliek China - EsperantoEsperantois the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
: Popolrespubliko de Ĉinio - EstonianEstonian languageEstonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
: Hiina Rahvavabariik - Filipino languageFilipino languageThis move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
: Republikang Popular ng Tsina - FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
: Kiinan kansantasavalta - French: République populaire de Chine
- GaelicGoidelic languagesThe Goidelic languages or Gaelic languages are one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic languages, the other consisting of the Brythonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland through the Isle of Man to the north of Scotland...
: Daon-Phoblacht na Síne - German: Volksrepublik China
- GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία της Κίνας - HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
: הרפובליקה העממית של סין - HindiHindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
: चीनी जनवादी गणराज्य Chīnī Janvādī Gaņarājya - HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
: Kínai Népköztársaság - Indonesian languageIndonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
: Republik Rakyat Tiongkok (also for commonly use Republik Rakyat Cina, the latter also used in Malaysia) - ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
: Repubblica popolare cinese - Japanese 中華人民共和国 (KanaKanaKana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...
: ちゅうかじんみんきょうわこく; Romaji: Chūka Jinmin Kyōwakoku) - KhmerKhmer languageKhmer , or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language , with speakers in the tens of millions. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious...
: សាធារណរដ្ឋប្រជាមានិតចិន (Sathearanakroth Prorcheaminet Chen) - Kirghiz: Kıtay El Respublikası
- LatvianLatvian languageLatvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
Ķīnas Tautas Republika - LithuanianLithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
Kinijos liaudies respublika - MacedonianMacedonian languageMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
: Народна Република Кина (Narodna Republika Kina) - NovialNovialNovial [nov- + IAL, International Auxiliary Language] is a constructed international auxiliary language intended to facilitate international communication and friendship, without displacing anyone's native language...
: Populen Republike de China - PersianPersian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
: جمهوری خلق چین - PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
: Chińska Republika Ludowa (abbreviation: ChRL) - RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
: Republica Populară Chineză - RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Китайская народная республика (abbreviation: КНР, Kitaiskaya Narodnaya Respublika) - SerbianSerbian languageSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
: Народна Република Кина (Narodna Republika Kina) - SlovakSlovak languageSlovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
: Čínska ľudová republika - SlovenianSlovenian languageSlovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. It is the first language of about 1.85 million people and is one of the 23 official and working languages of the European Union...
: Ljudska republika Kitajska - Spanish: República Popular de China
- TajikTajik languageTajik, Tajik Persian, or Tajiki, is a variety of modern Persian spoken in Central Asia. Historically Tajiks called their language zabani farsī , meaning Persian language in English; the term zabani tajikī, or Tajik language, was introduced in the 20th century by the Soviets...
: Çumhurii Xalqii Cin - TatarTatar languageThe Tatar language , or more specifically Kazan Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars of historical Kazan Khanate, including modern Tatarstan and Bashkiria...
: Kıtay Xalık Cömhüriyaten - ThaiThai languageThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
: สาธารณรัฐประชาชนจีน (Satharanarat Prachachon Cheen : People's Republic of China) - TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
: Çin Halk Cumhuriyeti - UrduUrduUrdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
: عوامی جمہوریہ چین - UzbekUzbek languageUzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 25.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...
: Xitoy Xalq Respublikasi - VietnameseVietnamese languageVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
: Cộng Hòa Nhân Dân Trung Hoa (Hán-Nôm: 共和人民中華)- Sino-Vietnamese: Trung Hoa Nhân dân Cộng hòa quốc (Hán-Nôm: 中華人民共和國)
- YiddishYiddish languageYiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
: רעפובליקע פון כינע
Republic of China
Since its founding in 1912, the Republic of ChinaRepublic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
has sometimes been referred to as "Republican China", in contrast to the empire it replaced
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, or as "Nationalist China", after the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
). It has also been referred to as the "Chinese Republic". Since the separation from mainland China since 1949 due to the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
, the territory of the Republic of China has largely been confined to the island of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
(acquired in 1945 by the result of World War II) and a few other small islands. Thus, the country is often commonly referred to as simply "Taiwan", although this may not be perceived as politically neutral. (See Taiwan Independence
Taiwan independence
Taiwan independence is a political movement whose goals are primarily to formally establish the Republic of Taiwan by renaming or replacing the Republic of China , form a Taiwanese national identity, reject unification and One country, two systems with the People's Republic of China and a Chinese...
.) Amid the hostile rhetoric of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, the government sometimes referred to itself as "Free China", in contrast to communist People's Republic of China. Democratized in 1996.
The official name of the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
in various languages
- Traditional Chinese 中華民國 - Official language and script
- Simplified Chinese: 中华民国
- Japanese:
- KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
: 中華民國 중화민국 Junghwa Minguk - BengaliBengali languageBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
: চীন প্রজাতন্ত্র Chin Projatôntro - CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
: República de la Xina - French: République de Chine
- German: Republik China
- HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
: הרפובליקה הסינית - MongolianMongolian languageThe Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
: Бүгд Найрамдах Хятад Улс (Official in the State of MongoliaMongoliaMongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
), (Official in Inner MongoliaInner MongoliaInner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
) - MacedonianMacedonian languageMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
: Република Кина (Republika Kina) - PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
: Republika Chińska - SerbianSerbian languageSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
: Република Кина (Republika Kina) - Spanish: República China
- VietnameseVietnamese languageVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
: Trung Hoa Dân Quốc (中華民國)
Names in non-Chinese records
Names used in the rest of Asia, especially EastEast Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
and Southeast Asia, are usually derived directly from words in a language of China learned through the land-route. Those languages belonging to a former dependency (tributary) or Chinese-influenced country have a pronunciation especially similar pronunciation to that of Chinese. Those used in Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
, however, have indirect names that came via the sea-route and bear little resemblance to what is used in China.
Chin
Popularized in the West by Marco PoloMarco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
's early 14th-century Il Milione, which used "Chin" as a transcription of Middle Persian
Middle Persian
Middle Persian , indigenously known as "Pârsig" sometimes referred to as Pahlavi or Pehlevi, is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as a...
Ṣīn (چین), from Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
Cina . The traditional etymology, proposed in the 17th century by Martin Martini and supported by many later scholars including Paul Pelliot
Paul Pelliot
Paul Pelliot was a French sinologist and explorer of Central Asia. Initially intending to enter the foreign service, Pelliot took up the study of Chinese and became a pupil of Sylvain Lévi and Édouard Chavannes....
is that the word is derived from the Qin state
Qin (state)
The State of Qin was a Chinese feudal state that existed during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods of Chinese history...
or dynasty
Qin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...
' onMouseout='HidePop("42948")' href="/topics/Old_Chinese">Old Chinese
Old Chinese
The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....
: *dzin) which ruled China from 221206 BC. This is still the most widely accepted theory. However, the Sanskrit name appears in both the Laws of Manu
Manu Smriti
' , also known as Mānava-Dharmaśāstra , is the most important and earliest metrical work of the Dharmaśāstra textual tradition of Hinduism...
and the Mahabhārata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
in reference to a state located in the Tibetan-Burman borderlands. Another theory proposed by Geoff Wade is that this word is derived from Yelang
Yelang
Yelang , initially known as Zangke , was an ancient political entity first described in the 3rd century BC that was centered in what is now western Guizhou province, China...
, an ancient kingdom in present-day Guizhou
Guizhou
' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. Its provincial capital city is Guiyang.- History :...
whose inhabitants referred to themselves as Zina.
Barbosa (1516) and Garcia de Orta
Garcia de Orta
Garcia de Orta was a Portuguese Renaissance Sephardi Jewish physician and naturalist. He was a pioneer of tropical medicine.- Life :...
(1563) mentioned China.
- AlbanianAlbanian languageAlbanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
: Kinë (IPA [kinə]) - AmharicAmharic languageAmharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working...
: Chayna (from English) - ArmenianArmenian languageThe Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
: Չինաստան (t͡ʃinasˈtan) - AzeriAzerbaijani languageAzerbaijani or Azeri or Torki is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia by the Azerbaijani people, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran...
: Çin (IPA [tʃin]) - BasqueBasque languageBasque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
: Txina (ˈtʃinə) - Bangla/BengaliBengali languageBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
: Chin (চীন IPA: [t͡ʃin]) - BosnianBosnian languageBosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
: Kina - CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
: Xina (IPA [ˈʃinə] or [ˈtʃina]) - Chinese: 支那 Zhīnà (obsolete and considered offensive due to historical Japanese usageShina (word)are Romanized Japanese transliterations for the Chinese character compound "支那" which is viewed by most Chinese people as an offensive term for China...
; originated from early Chinese translations of Buddhist texts in Sanskrit) - CroatianCroatian languageCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
: Kina - CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
: Čína (ˈt͡ʃiːna) - DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
: Kina - DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: China - English: China (ˈtʃaɪnə)
- EsperantoEsperantois the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
: Ĉinujo or Ĉinio, or Ĥinujo (archaic) - EstonianEstonian languageEstonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
: Hiina - FilipinoFilipino languageThis move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
(TagalogTagalog languageTagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
): Tsina - FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
: Kiina (kiːnɑ) - French: Chine (ʃin)
- GeorgianGeorgian languageGeorgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
: ჩინეთი (t͡ʃiːnɛtiː) - German: China (ˈçiːna, in some southern dialects also [ˈkiːna])
- GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: Κίνα (Kína) - HindiHindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
: Chīn चीन (IPA ˈt͡ʃiːn) - HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
: Kína (kiːnɒ) - IcelandicIcelandic languageIcelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
: Kína - IndonesianIndonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
: Cina ([t͡ʃina]) - InterlinguaInterlinguaInterlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association...
: China - IrishIrish languageIrish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
: An tSín (ən ˈtʲiːnʲ) - ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
: Cina (ˈt͡ʃiːna) - Japanese: Shina (支那) — considered offensive in China, now largely obsolete in Japan and avoided out of deference to China (the name Chūgoku is used instead); See Shina (word)Shina (word)are Romanized Japanese transliterations for the Chinese character compound "支那" which is viewed by most Chinese people as an offensive term for China...
and kotobagariKotobagarirefers to the reluctance to use words that are considered politically incorrect in the Japanese language. For instance words such as , , tsunbo , oshi , kichigai , tosatsujō , and hakuchi are currently not used by the majority of Japanese publishing houses; the publishers often refuse...
. - KhmerKhmer languageKhmer , or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language , with speakers in the tens of millions. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious...
: ចិន (cən) - KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
: Jina (지나) - LithuanianLithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
: Kinija - MacedonianMacedonian languageMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
: Кина (Kina) - MalayMalay languageMalay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
: China ([t͡ʃina]) - MalayalamMalayalam languageMalayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...
: Cheenan/Cheenathi - NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
: Kina (çiːnɑ or [ʃiːnɑ]) - PahlaviMiddle PersianMiddle Persian , indigenously known as "Pârsig" sometimes referred to as Pahlavi or Pehlevi, is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as a...
: Čīnī - PersianPersian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
: Chin چين (t͡ʃin) - PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
: Chiny (ˈxinɨ) - PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
: China (ˈʃinɐ) - RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
: China (ˈkiːna) - SerbianSerbian languageSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
: Kina or Кина (kiːna) - SlovakSlovak languageSlovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
: Čína (t͡ʃiːna) - Spanish: China (ˈtʃina)
- SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
: Kina (ˈɕiːna) - TamilTamil languageTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
: Cheenaa (சீனா) - ThaiThai languageThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
: Jiin (จีน) - TibetanTibetan languageThe Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...
: Gya-nak - TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
: Çin (t͡ʃin) - UrduUrduUrdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
: Čīn چين (t͡ʃiːn) - WelshWelsh languageWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
: Tsieina
Seres (Σηρες)
Seres (Σῆρες) was the ancient GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Roman
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
name for the northwestern part of China and its inhabitants. It meant "of silk," or "land where silk comes from." The name is thought to derive from the Chinese word for silk, "si" . It is itself at the origin of the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
for silk, "serica". See the main article Seres
Seres
Seres was the ancient Greek and Roman name for the inhabitants of eastern Central Asia. It meant "of silk," or people of the "land where silk comes from." The country of the Seres was Serica....
for more details.
Ser
An earlier usage than Sin, possibly related.- GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: SeresSeresSeres was the ancient Greek and Roman name for the inhabitants of eastern Central Asia. It meant "of silk," or people of the "land where silk comes from." The country of the Seres was Serica....
, Serikos - LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
: Serica
This may be a back formation from serikos (σηρικος), "made of silk", from sêr (σηρ), "silkworm," in which case Seres is "the land where silk comes from."
Sin
A name possibly of origin separate from Chin.- ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
: صين - French/English (prefix of adjectives): Sino- (i.e. Sino-American), Sinitic (the Chinese language family).
- LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
: Sinæ
This name is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
in Genesis 10:17, where it is said that the Sinites are descendants of Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
, the son of Ham
Ham, son of Noah
Ham , according to the Table of Nations in the Book of Genesis, was a son of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan.- Hebrew Bible :The story of Ham is related in , King James Version:...
.
It's thought that this term may have come to Europe through the Arabs, who made the China of the farther east into Sin, and perhaps sometimes into Thin. Hence the Thin of the author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea or Periplus of the Red Sea is a Greco-Roman periplus, written in Greek, describing navigation and trading opportunities from Roman Egyptian ports like Berenice along the coast of the Red Sea, and others along Northeast Africa and India...
, who appears to be the first extant writer to employ the name in this form; hence also the Sinæ and Thinae of Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
.
Some denied that Ptolemy's Sinæ really represented the Chinese. But if we compare the statement of Marcianus of Heraclea (a condenser of Ptolemy), when he tells us that the "nations of the Sinae lie at the extremity of the habitable world, and adjoin the eastern Terra Incognita
Terra incognita
Terra incognita or terra ignota is a term used in cartography for regions that have not been mapped or documented. The expression is believed to be first seen in Ptolemy’s Geography circa 150 CE...
," with that of Cosmas Indicopleustes
Cosmas Indicopleustes
Cosmas Indicopleustes was an Alexandrian merchant and later hermit, probably of Nestorian tendencies. He was a 6th-century traveller, who made several voyages to India during the reign of emperor Justinian...
, who says, in speaking of Tzinista, a name understood as referring to China, that "beyond this there is neither habitation nor navigation", it seems probable that the same region is meant by both. Ptolemy's misrendering of the Indian Sea as a closed basin—i.e., placing the Chinese coast along its eastern boundary—should not necessarily be seen as a counterargument, as also he described what is unmistakably India with similarly erroneous geography. Most scholars still believe Sinæ is China.
Sinae
Sinae was an ancient Greek and Roman name for some people who dwelt south of the SeresSeres
Seres was the ancient Greek and Roman name for the inhabitants of eastern Central Asia. It meant "of silk," or people of the "land where silk comes from." The country of the Seres was Serica....
in the eastern extremity of the inhabitable world. References to the Sinae include mention of a city that the Romans called Sera Metropolis, which is modern Chang'an
Chang'an
Chang'an is an ancient capital of more than ten dynasties in Chinese history, today known as Xi'an. Chang'an literally means "Perpetual Peace" in Classical Chinese. During the short-lived Xin Dynasty, the city was renamed "Constant Peace" ; yet after its fall in AD 23, the old name was restored...
. Although the name Sinae appears to be derived from the same etymological source as the Latin prefixes Sino- and Sin-, which are traditionally used to refer to China and the Chinese, there is some controversy as to the ultimate origin of these terms, as their use in historical texts of classical antiquity in the West appears to antedate the emergence of the Qin Dynasty
Qin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...
and its empire, the name of which has often been cited as the source of Latin Sino- and Sin-.
China
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
, and many others use various forms of the name "China" and the prefix "Sino-" or "Sin-". These forms are thought to be probably derived from the name of the Qin Dynasty that first unified the country (221–206 BCE). The Qin Dynasty unified the written language in China and gave the supreme ruler of China the title of "Emperor" instead of "King," thus the subsequent Silk Road
Silk Road
The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...
traders may have identified themselves by that name.
The term "China" can also be used to refer to:
- the modern states known as the People's Republic of China (PRC) and (before the 1970s) the Republic of ChinaRepublic of ChinaThe Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
(ROC) - "Mainland China" (中国大陆/中國大陸, Zhōngguó Dàlù in Mandarin), which is the territory of the PRC minus the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and MacauMacauMacau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
; - "China properChina properChina proper or Eighteen Provinces was a term used by Western writers on the Qing Dynasty to express a distinction between the core and frontier regions of China. There is no fixed extent for China proper, as many administrative, cultural, and linguistic shifts have occurred in Chinese history...
", a term used to refer to the historical heartlands of China without peripheral areas like ManchuriaManchuriaManchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
, Inner MongoliaInner MongoliaInner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
, TibetTibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
, and XinjiangXinjiangXinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
In economic contexts, "Greater China
Greater China
Greater China is a term used to refer to mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. As a "phrase of the moment", the precise meaning is not entirely clear, and people may use it for only the commercial ties, only the cultural actions, or even as a euphemism for the Two Chinas, while others may...
" (大中华地区/大中華地區, dà Zhōnghhuá dìqū) is intended to be a neutral and non-political way to refer to Mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, Hong Kong, Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
.
Sinologists usually use "Chinese" in a more restricted sense, akin to the classical usage of Zhongguo 中国, to the Han
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
ethnic group, which makes up the bulk of the population in China and of the overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
.
Kina
Qin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...
. In Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, Kinesiska means Chinese, the language used in Kina.
Cathay
This group of names derives from KhitanKhitan people
thumb|250px|Khitans [[Eagle hunting|using eagles to hunt]], painted during the Chinese [[Song Dynasty]].The Khitan people , or Khitai, Kitan, or Kidan, were a nomadic Mongolic people, originally located at Mongolia and Manchuria from the 4th century...
, an ethnic group that originated in Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
and conquered parts of Northern China. Due to long domination of Northern China by these non-Chinese conquerors, it was considered by northwestern people as the land of the Khitan. In English and in several other European languages, the name "Cathay" became widely used for all of China largely as a result of translations of the adventures of Marco Polo
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
, which used this word for northern China.
- BulgarianBulgarian languageBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
: Китай - Classical Mongolian: Kitad
- English: Cathay
- Kazan TatarTatar languageThe Tatar language , or more specifically Kazan Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars of historical Kazan Khanate, including modern Tatarstan and Bashkiria...
: Qıtay - Medieval LatinMedieval LatinMedieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...
: Cataya, Kitai - MongolianMongolian languageThe Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
: Хятад (Khyatad) - BuryatBuryat languageBuryat is a Mongolic variety spoken by the Buryats that is either classified as a language or as a major dialect group of Mongolian. The majority of Buryat speakers live in Russia along the northern border of Mongolia where it is an official language in the Buryat Republic, Ust-Orda Buryatia and...
: Хитад (Khitad) - PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
: Catai - RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Китай (Kitáj) - Slovene: (kiːˈtajska)
- KazakhKazakh languageKazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....
: Қытай (Qıtay) - TurkmenTurkmen languageTurkmen is the national language of Turkmenistan...
: Hitaý - UkrainianUkrainian languageUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
: Китай (Kytai) - UygurUyghur languageUyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...
: Hyty
There is no evidence that either in the 13th or 14th century, Cathayans, i.e. Chinese, travelled officially to Europe, but it is possible that some did, in unofficial capacity, at least in the 13th century. For, during the campaigns of Hulagu (the grandson of Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
) in Persia (1256–65), and the reigns of his successors, Chinese engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
s were employed on the banks of the Tigris
Tigris
The Tigris River is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...
, and Chinese astrologer
Astrologer
An astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an...
s and physicians could be consulted. Many diplomatic communications passed between the Hulaguid Ilkhans and the Christian princes. The former, as the great khan's liegemen, still received from him their seals
Seal (device)
A seal can be a figure impressed in wax, clay, or some other medium, or embossed on paper, with the purpose of authenticating a document ; but the term can also mean the device for making such impressions, being essentially a mould with the mirror image of the design carved in sunken- relief or...
of state; and two of their letters which survive in the archives of France exhibit the vermilion impressions of those seals in Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
s -- perhaps affording the earliest specimen of those characters which reached western Europe.
Tabgach
"TabgachTabgach
Tabgach was a Turkic title for the tribe called in Chinese Tuoba that headed a powerful Xianbei tribe. It is also the Turkic name for the Tang Dynasty in Tangri Bilge's Orkhon inscriptions...
" came from the metatheses of "Tuoba
Tuoba
Tuoba, or Tabgach, were a clan of Xianbei people of ancient China.-Xianbei Tuoba:Tuoba was a clan of the Xianbei people in the early centuries of the 1st millennium AD. They established the State of Dai from 310 to 376 AD, and the Northern Wei Dynasty from 386 to 536 AD...
" (*takbat), a dominant tribe of the Xianbei
Xianbei
The Xianbei were a significant Mongolic nomadic people residing in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and eastern Mongolia. The title “Khan” was first used among the Xianbei.-Origins:...
, and the surname of the Northern Wei
Northern Wei
The Northern Wei Dynasty , also known as the Tuoba Wei , Later Wei , or Yuan Wei , was a dynasty which ruled northern China from 386 to 534 . It has been described as "part of an era of political turbulence and intense social and cultural change"...
Dynasty in the 5th century before sinicisation. It referred to Northern China, which was dominated by half-Xianbei, half-Chinese people.
- Byzantine GreekMedieval GreekMedieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, is the stage of the Greek language between the beginning of the Middle Ages around 600 and the Ottoman conquest of the city of Constantinople in 1453. The latter date marked the end of the Middle Ages in Southeast Europe...
: Taugats - Orhon Kok-TurkOld Turkic languageOld Turkic is the earliest attested form of Turkic, found in Göktürk and Uyghur inscriptions dating from about the 7th century to the 13th century....
: Tabgach (variations Tamgach)
Nikan
ManchuManchu language
Manchu is a Tungusic endangered language spoken in Northeast China; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus...
: Nikan was a Manchu ethnonym of unknown origin that referred specifically to the ethnic group known in English as the Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
; the stem of this word was also conjugated as a verb, nikara(-mbi), and used to mean "to speak the Chinese language
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
." Since Nikan was essentially an ethnonym
Ethnonym
An ethnonym is the name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms and autonyms or endonyms .As an example, the ethnonym for...
and referred to a group of people (i.e., a nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
) rather than to a political body (i.e., a state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
), the correct translation of "China" into the Manchu language is Nikan gurun, literally the "Nikan state" or "country of the Nikans" (i.e., country of the Hans).
This exonym for the Han Chinese is also used in the Daur language
Daur language
The Daur or Dagur language is a Mongolic language primarily spoken by members of the Daur ethnic group.-Distribution:Daur is a Mongolic language consisting of four dialects: Amur Daur in the vicinity of Heihe, the Nonni Daur on the west side of the Nonni River from south of Qiqihaer up to the Morin...
, in which it appears as Niaken ([njakən] or [ɲakən]). As in the case of the Manchu language, the Daur word Niaken is essentially an ethnonym, and the proper way to refer to the country of the Han Chinese (i.e., "China" in a cultural sense) is Niaken gurun, while niakendaaci- is a verb meaning "to talk in Chinese."
Kara
Japanese: Kara (から; variously written in kanjiKanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
as 唐 or 漢). An identical name was used by the ancient and medieval Japanese to refer to the country that is now known as Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
, and many Japanese historians and linguists believe that the word "Kara" referring to China and/or Korea may have derived from a metonymic
Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
extension of the appellation of the ancient city-states of Gaya
Gaya confederacy
Gaya was a confederacy of territorial polities in the Nakdong River basin of southern Korea, growing out of the Byeonhan confederacy of the Samhan period.The traditional period used by historians for Gaya chronology is 42–532 CE...
.
The Japanese word karate
Karate
is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...
(空手, lit. "empty hand"), referring to a form of martial arts, was earlier also written as 唐手 (lit. "Chinese hand") in respect of its Chinese origin.
Morokoshi
Japanese: Morokoshi (もろこし; variously written in kanjiKanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
as 唐 or 唐土). This obsolete Japanese name for China is believed to have derived from a kun reading of the Chinese compound 諸越 Zhūyuè or 百越
Bǎiyuè as "all the Yue" or "the hundred (i.e., myriad, various, or numerous) Yue," which was an ancient Chinese name for the societies of the regions that are now southern China.
The Japanese common noun tōmorokoshi (トウモロコシ, 玉蜀黍), which refers to maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, appears to contain an element cognate with the proper noun formerly used in reference to China. Although tōmorokoshi is traditionally written with Chinese characters that literally mean "jade Shu
Shu (state)
The State of Shu was an ancient state in what is now Sichuan, China. It was conquered by Qin in 316 BC. Shu was based on the Chengdu Plain, in the western Sichuan basin with some extension northeast to the upper Han River valley. To the east was the Ba tribal confederation. Further east down the...
millet
Proso millet
Proso millet is also known as common millet, hog millet or white millet. Both the wild ancestor and the location of domestication of proso millet are unknown, but it first appears as a crop in both Transcaucasia and China about 7,000 years ago, suggesting that it may have been domesticated...
," the etymology of the Japanese word appears to go back to "Tang morokoshi," in which "morokoshi" was the obsolete Japanese name for China as well as the Japanese word for sorghum
Sorghum
Sorghum is a genus of numerous species of grasses, one of which is raised for grain and many of which are used as fodder plants either cultivated or as part of pasture. The plants are cultivated in warmer climates worldwide. Species are native to tropical and subtropical regions of all continents...
, which seems to have been introduced into Japan from China.
Mangi
From Chinese Manzi (southern barbarians). The division of North China and South China under the Jin Dynasty and Song DynastySong Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
weakened the dogma that China should be unified, and it was common for a time to call the politically disparate North and South by different names. While Northern China was called Cathay, Southern China was referred to as Mangi. Manzi often appears in documents of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
. The Mongols also called Southern Chinese "Nangkiyas" or "Nangkiyad", and considered them ethnically distinct from North Chinese. As Marco Polo used it, the word "Manzi" reached the Western world as "Mangi" (Machin). The Chinese, themselves, saw "Mangi" as a derogation and never used it as self appellation.
- Chinese: Manzi (蠻子)
- LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
: Mangi
See also
- Chinese romanization
- List of country name etymologies
- Names of IndiaNames of IndiaThe name India may refer to either the region of Greater India , or to the contemporary Republic of India contained therein....
- Names of JapanNames of JapanThere are many names of Japan in the English, Japanese, and other languages. The word "Japan" is an exonym, and is used by a large number of languages. The Japanese names for Japan are Nippon and Nihon . They are both written in Japanese using the kanji 日本...
- Names of KoreaNames of KoreaThere are various names of Korea in use today, derived from ancient kingdoms and dynasties. The modern English name Korea is an exonym derived from the Goryeo period and is used by both North Korea and South Korea in international contexts...
- Île-de-France (province)Île-de-France (province)The province of Île-de-France or Isle de France is an historical province of France, and the one at the centre of power during most of French history...
, similar French concept