CHINA: Someone From China Is Called What? Currency Name And Flag Color Of China

The word “China” has been used in English since the 16th century; however, it was not a word used by the Chinese themselves during this period in time. Its origin has been traced through Portuguese, Malay, and Persian back to the Sanskrit word Chīna, used in ancient India.

“China” appears in Richard Eden’s 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. Barbosa’s usage was derived from Persian Chīn (چین), which was in turn derived from Sanskrit Cīna (चीन). Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata (5th century BCE) and the Laws of Manu (2nd century BCE). In 1655, Martino Martini suggested that the word China is derived ultimately from the name of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Although usage in Indian sources precedes this dynasty, this derivation is still given in various sources. The origin of the Sanskrit word is a matter of debate, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Alternative suggestions include the names for Yelang and the Jing or Chu state.

The official name of the modern state is the “People’s Republic of China” (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó). The shorter form is “China” Zhōngguó (中国; 中國) from zhōng (“central”) and guó (“state”), a term which developed under the Western Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne. It was then applied to the area around Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) during the Eastern Zhou and then to China’s Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing. It was often used as a cultural concept to distinguish the Huaxia people from perceived “barbarians”. The name Zhongguo is also translated as “Middle Kingdom” in English. China (PRC) is sometimes referred to as the Mainland when distinguishing the ROC from the PRC.

China (Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; lit. ‘Central State; Middle Kingdom’), officially the People’s Republic of China (Chinese: 中华人民共和国; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó; abbr. PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world’s most populous country, with a population of more than 1.4 billion. China follows a single standard time offset of UTC+08:00 even though it spans five geographical time zones and borders 14 countries, the second most of any country in the world after Russia. Covering an area of approximately 9.6 million square kilometers (3.7 million mi2), it is the world’s third or fourth largest country. The country is officially divided into 23 provinces, five autonomous regions, and four direct-controlled municipalities of Beijing (capital city), Tianjin, Shanghai (largest city), and Chongqing, as well as two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau.

China emerged as one of the world’s first civilizations, in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. China was one of the world’s foremost economic powers for most of the two millennia from the 1st until the 19th century. For millennia, China’s political system was based on absolute hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, beginning with the Xia dynasty in 21st century BCE. Since then, China has expanded, fractured, and re-unified numerous times. In the 3rd century BCE, the Qin reunited core China and established the first Chinese empire. The succeeding Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) saw some of the most advanced technology at that time, including papermaking and the compass, along with agricultural and medical improvements. The invention of gunpowder and movable type in the Tang dynasty (618–907) and Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127) completed the Four Great Inventions. Tang culture spread widely in Asia, as the new Silk Route brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and the Horn of Africa. The Qing Empire, China’s last dynasty, which formed the territorial basis for modern China, suffered heavy losses to foreign imperialism. The Chinese monarchy collapsed in 1912 with the 1911 Revolution, when the Republic of China (ROC) replaced the Qing dynasty. China was invaded by the Empire of Japan during World War II. The Chinese Civil War resulted in a division of territory in 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China on mainland China while the Kuomintang-led ROC government retreated to the island of Taiwan. Both the PRC and the ROC currently claim to be the sole legitimate government of China, resulting in an ongoing dispute even after the United Nations recognized the PRC as the government to represent China at all UN conferences in 1971. China is currently governed as a unitary one-party socialist republic by the Chinese Communist Party.

China is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a founding member of several multilateral and regional cooperation organizations such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund, the New Development Bank, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and is a member of the BRICS, the G8+5, the G20, the APEC, and the East Asia Summit. It ranks among the lowest in international measurements of civil liberties, government transparency, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and ethnic minorities. Chinese authorities have been criticized by political dissidents and human rights activists for widespread human rights abuses, including political repression, mass censorship, mass surveillance of their citizens and violent suppression of protests.

After economic reforms in 1978, and its entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, China’s economy became the second-largest country by nominal GDP in 2010 and grew to the largest in the world by PPP in 2014. China is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, the second-wealthiest nation in the world, and the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter. The nation has the world’s largest standing army—the People’s Liberation Army—the second-largest defense budget, and is a recognized nuclear weapons state. China has been characterized as a potential superpower due to its large economy and powerful military.