View China MAP : China AsiaStar hotels reservation special prices for online hotels resorts booking by ChinaAsiaStar.

View Larger Map

View CHINA Map

China; Tongyong Pinyin: Jhonggu?; Wade-Giles (Mandarin): Chung?kuo?) is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and a country in East Asia.

China is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, consisting of states and cultures dating back more than six millennia. It has the world's longest continuously used written language system, and the source of such major inventions as what the British scholar and biochemist Joseph Needham called the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China: paper, the compass, gunpowder, and printing.

The stalemate of the last Chinese Civil War has resulted in two political entities using the name China: the People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly known as China, which controls mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau; and the Republic of China (ROC), commonly known as Taiwan, which controls the island of Taiwan and some nearby islands.

Get $50 off your $250 Order for St. Patrick's Day

China is called Zhongguoin Chinese. The character zh?ng means "middle" or "central," while gu? means "state". The term is commonly translated into English as "Middle Kingdom", but is also sometimes translated as "Central Kingdom".

The name "Zhongguo" appeared first in the Classic of History (6th Century BC), and was used to refer to the late Zhou Dynasty, as they believed that they were the "center of civilization" , while peoples in the four cardinals were called Eastern Yi, Southern Man, Western Rong and Northern Di respectively. Some texts imply that "Zhongguo" was originally meant to refer to the capital of the sovereign, to differ from the capital of his vassals.

The use of "Zhongguo" implied a claim of political legitimacy. "Zhongguo" was often used by states who saw themselves as the sole legitimate successor to previous Chinese dynasties; for example, in the era of the Southern Song Dynasty, both the Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song state claimed to be "Zhongguo".

"Zhongguo" came to official use as an abbreviation for the Republic of China (Zhonghua Minguo) after the government's establishment in 1912. Since the People's Republic of China, established in 1949, now controls the great majority of area encompassed within the traditional concept of "China", the People's Republic is the political unit most commonly identified with the abbreviated name "Zhongguo".

English and many other languages use various forms of the name "China" and the prefix "Sino-" or "Sin-". These forms are thought to derive from the name of the Qin Dynasty that first unified the country (221–206 BCE). The pronunciation of "Qin" is similar to "Chin", which is considered the possible root of the word "China"


	ChinaAsiaStar
	History China
	View China Map
	Safety Tips in China
	Explore China
	Hotels in China
	Bargaining in China
	What To Wear While
	Deal With Emergencies
	Chinese Currency - RMB
	Chinese Etiquette