- This article is about the Chinese civilization. For the two modern states using the name "China", see:
People's Republic of China (PRC), which governs mainland China, 
Hong Kong and 
Macau; or
Republic of China (ROC), which governs Taiwan, Matsu, and Kinmen.
For other meanings, see China (disambiguation).
China (Traditional Chinese: 中國; Simplified Chinese: 中国; Hanyu Pinyin: Zhōngguó ; Tongyong Pinyin: Jhongguó) is a cultural region and ancient civilization in East Asia. China refers to one of the world's oldest civilization comprising successive states and cultures dating back more than 6,000 years. The stalemate of the last Chinese Civil War following World War II has resulted in two separate states using the name "China": the People's Republic of China (PRC), administering mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau; and the Republic of China (ROC), administering Taiwan and its surrounding islands.
China has one of the world's longest periods of mostly uninterrupted civilization and one of the world's longest continuously used written language systems. The successive states and cultures of China date back more than six millennia. For centuries, China was the world's most advanced civilization, and the cultural center of East Asia, with an impact lasting to the present day. China is also the source of many great technical inventions developed throughout world history, including the four great inventions of ancient China: Paper, the compass, gunpowder, and printing.
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Names
"Zhongguo"
China is called Zhongguo (also Romanized as Chung-kuo or Jhongguo) in Mandarin Chinese. The first character zhōng (中) means "central" or "middle" while guó (国 or 國) means "country" or "region". The term is commonly translated into English as "the Middle Kingdom"[citation needed]. However, there have been arguments that it should be translated as "the Central Kingdom"[1], based on the archaic meaning of the term Zhongguo as "center part [of the world]"[2][3].
The term has not been used consistently throughout Chinese history, and has carried varying cultural and political connotations.
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 Zhongguo and were already considered integral parts of a newer Zhongguo.
During the Han Dynasty and before, Zhongguo had three distinctive meanings:
- The area around the capital or imperial domain. The Book of Poetry explicitly gives this definition.
- Territories under the direct control of the "central" authorities. The Records of the Grand Historian states: "Eight mountains are famed in the empire. Three are with the Man and Yi barbarians. Five are in Zhongguo."
- The area now called the North China Plain. The Records of Three Kingdoms records the following monologue: "If we can lead the host of Wu and Yue (the kingdoms in areas of present-day Shanghai, southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang) to oppose Zhongguo, then we should break off relations with them soon." In this sense, the term Zhongguo is synonymous with Hua (华 or 華) and Xia (夏), and distinct from the Wu and Yue peoples living around the Yangtze River Delta.
During the period of division after the fall of the Han Dynasty, the term Zhongguo was subjected to transformation as a result of the surge of nomadic peoples from the northern frontier. This was reinforced after the loss of the Yellow River valley, the cradle of Chinese civilization, to these peoples. For example, the Xianbei called their Northern Wei regime Zhongguo, contrasting it with the Southern Dynasties, which they called the Yi (夷), meaning "barbarian". The southern dynasties, for their part, recently exiled from the north, called the Northern Wei Lu (虜), meaning "criminal" or "prisoner". In this way Zhongguo came to represent political legitimacy. It was used in this manner from the tenth century onwards by the competing dynasties of Liao, Jin and Song. The term Zhongguo came to be related to geographic, cultural and political identity and less to ethnic origin.
Zhongguo 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 included barbarian regimes such as the Xianbei and Xiongnu.
The Republic of China, when it controlled mainland China, and later, the People's Republic of China, have used Zhongguo to mean all the territories and peoples within their political control. Thus it is asserted that all 56 officially recognized ethnic groups are Zhongguoren (中国人 or 中國人), or Zhongguo people, though such claims remain politically controversial, especially when Zhongguo refers to the PRC.
"China"
English and many other languages 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).[4] 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 might have identified themselves by that name.
The term "China" can also be used to refer to:
- the modern state known as the People's Republic of China (PRC);
- "Mainland China" (中国大陆 or 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 Macau;
- "China proper", a term used to refer to the historical heartlands of China without peripheral areas like Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang
In economic contexts, "Greater China" (大中华地区 or 大中華地區) is a neutral and non-political way to refer to Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and sometimes Taiwan. "Taiwan" often refers to the Republic of China.
Sinologists usually use "Chinese" in a more restricted sense, akin to the classical usage of Zhongguo, to the Han ethnic group, which makes up the bulk of the population in China and of the overseas Chinese.
Cathay
Although now restricted mostly to poetic usage, the name Cathay has historically been used as a name for China, particularly its northern half. Cathay derives from the name of the Khitan ethnic group, which ruled over most of North China as the Liao Dynasty until being displaced in turn by the Jurchens from the northeast and the Mongols from the north. A cognate form, Kitay, remains the most commonly used name for China in the modern Slavic languages.[citation needed]
Seres (Σηρες)
Seres (Σηρες) was the ancient Greek 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" (Traditional Chinese: 絲; Simplified Chinese: 丝; pinyin: sī). It is itself at the origin of the Latin for silk, "serica". See the main article Seres for more details.
Sinae
Sinae was an ancient Greek and Roman name for some people who dwelt south of the Seres in the eastern extremity of the inhabitable world. References to the Sinae include mention of a city that the ancients called "the metropolis of the Sinae," the identity of which is unknown to modern scholars. 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-.[citation needed]
Kina
"Kina" is used to refer to China in North Europe now and the pronunciation is /ʃi:na/. This name still comes from the Qin Dynasty. In Swedish(svenska), Kinesiska means Chinese(汉语), the language used in Kina.
History
China was one of the earliest centers of human civilization. Chinese civilization was also one of the few to invent writing independently, the others being ancient Mesopotamia (Sumerians), Ancient India (Indus Valley Civilization), the Mayan Civilization, and Ancient Egypt. The Chinese script is still used today by the Chinese and Japanese, and to a lesser extent by Koreans and Vietnamese. This script is one of the few, and the only major, logographic script still used in the world.
Prehistory
Archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest occupants in China date to as long as 2.24 million to 250,000 years ago by an ancient human relative (hominin) known as Homo erectus. One particular cave in Zhoukoudian (near current-day Beijing) has fossilized evidence that current dating techniques put at somewhere between 300,000 and 550,000 years old. Evidence of primitive stone tool technology and animal bones associated with H. erectus have been studied since the late 18th to 19th centuries in various areas of Eastern Asia including Indonesia (in particular Java) and Malaysia. It is thought that these early hominids first evolved in Africa during the Pleistocene epoch. By 2 million years ago, the first migration wave of H. erectus settled throughout the Old World.
Fully modern humans (Homo sapiens) are believed to originally have evolved roughly 200,000 and 168,000 years ago in the area of Ethiopia or Southern Africa (Homo sapiens idaltu). By 100,000 to 50,000 years ago, modern human beings had settled in all parts of the Old World (25,000 to 11,000 BCE in the New World). In the last 100,000 years, all proto-human populations disappeared as modern humans took over or drove other human species into extinction.
The earliest evidence of fully modern humans in China comes from Liujiang, China where a cranium has been found dating from 67,000 years ago. There is a partial skeleton from Minatogawa that is only 18,000 years old.
Dynastic rule
The first dynasty according to Chinese sources was the Xia Dynasty, but it was believed to be mythical until scientific excavations were made at early bronze-age sites at Erlitou in Henan Province. Since then, archaeologists have uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs that point to the possible existence of the Xia dynasty at the same locations cited in ancient Chinese historical texts.
The first reliable historical dynasty is the Shang, which settled along the Yellow River in eastern China from the 18th to the 12th century BCE. The Shang were invaded from the west by the Zhou who ruled from the 12th to the 5th century BCE. The centralized authority of the Zhou was slowly eroded by warlords. In the Spring and Autumn period there were many strong, independent states continually warring with each other, who deferred to the Zhou state in name only. The first unified Chinese state was established by the Qin Dynasty in 221 BCE, when the office of the emperor was set up. This state did not last long, as its legalist approach to control soon led to widespread rebellion.
The Han Dynasty lasted from 206 BCE until 220 CE. Another period of disunion followed. In 580 CE, China was reunited under the Sui. Under the succeeding Tang and Song dynasties, China had its golden age. Between the 7th and 14th centuries, China was one of the most advanced civilizations in the world in technology, literature, and art, although change was gradual. In 1271, Mongol leader Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty, with the last remnant of the Song Dynasty falling to the Yuan in 1279. A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Mongols in 1368 and founded the Ming Dynasty, which lasted until 1644. The Manchu-founded Qing Dynasty, which lasted until the overthrow of Puyi in 1911, was the final dynasty of China.
Regime change was often violent and the new ruling class usually needed to take special measures to ensure the loyalty of the overthrown dynasty. For example, after the Manchus conquered China, the Manchu rulers put into effect measures aimed at subduing the Han Chinese identity, such as the requirement for the Han Chinese to wear the Manchu hairstyle, the queue.
In the 18th century, China achieved a decisive technological advantage over the peoples of Central Asia, with which it had been at war for several centuries, while simultaneously falling behind Europe.
In the 19th century China adopted a defensive posture towards European imperialism, even though it engaged in imperialistic expansion into Central Asia itself. At this time China awoke to the significance of the rest of the world, in particular the West. As China opened up to foreign trade and missionary activity opium became available. Two Opium Wars with Britain weakened the Emperor's control. One result was the Taiping Civil War which lasted from 1851 to 1862. It was started by Hong Xiuquan, who was partly influenced by Christianity and believed himself the son of God and the younger brother of Jesus. Although the imperial forces were eventually victorious, the civil war was one of the bloodiest in human history, costing at least twenty million lives (more than the total number of fatalities in the First World War), with some estimates of over 30 million. The flow of opium led to more decline, even in the face of noble efforts by missionaries such as Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission to stem the tide. Further destruction followed the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 which aimed to repel Westerners. Although secretly supporting the rebels, Empress Ci Xi publicly aided foreign forces suppressing the uprising. In the end the Boxers were defeated by the Eight-Nation Alliance.
- See also: Dynasties in Chinese history and Chinese sovereign
Republican China
On January 1, 1912, the Republic of China was established, ending the Qing Dynasty. Sun Yat-sen of the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Party), was proclaimed provisional president of the republic. However, Yuan Shikai, a former Qing general who had defected to the revolutionary cause, soon forced Sun to step aside and took the presidency for himself. Yuan then attempted to have himself proclaimed emperor of a new dynasty; however, he died of natural causes before fully taking power over all of the Chinese empire.
After Yuan Shikai's death, China was politically fragmented, with an internationally-recognized, but virtually powerless, national government seated in Beijing. Warlords in various regions exercised actual control over their respective territories. In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang, under Chiang Kai-shek, was able to reunify the country under its own control, moving the nation's capital to Nanjing and implementing "political tutelage", an intermediate stage of political development outlined in Sun Yat-sen's program for transforming China into a modern, democratic state. Effectively, political tutelage meant one-party rule by the Kuomintang.
The Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 (part of World War II) forced an uneasy alliance between the Nationalists and the Communists. With the surrender of Japan in 1945, China emerged victorious but financially drained. The continued distrust between the Nationalists and the Communists led to the resumption of the Chinese Civil War. In 1947, constitutional rule was established, but because of the ongoing Civil War many provisions of the ROC constitution were never implemented on the mainland.
- See also: History of the Republic of China
The People's Republic of China and the Republic of China
After its victory in the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party of China controlled most of Mainland China. On October 1, 1949, they established the People's Republic of China, laying claim to be the successor state of the ROC. The central government of the ROC was forced to retreat to the island of Taiwan. Major armed hostilities ceased in 1950 but both sides are technically still at war.
Beginning in the late 1970s, the Republic of China began the implementation of full, multi-party, representative democracy in the territories still under its control (i.e., Taiwan Province, Taipei, Kaohsiung and some offshore islands of Fujian province). Today, the ROC has active political participation by all sectors of society. The main cleavage in ROC politics is the issue of eventual unification with China vs. formal independence.
Post-1978 reforms on the mainland have led to some relaxation of the control over many areas of society. However, the Chinese government still has absolute control over politics, and it continually seeks to eradicate threats to the stability of the country . Examples include the fight against terrorism, jailing of political opponents and journalists, custody regulation of the press, regulation of religions, and suppression of independence/secessionist movements. In 1989, the student protests at Tiananmen Square were violently put to an end by the Chinese military after 15 days of martial law.
In 1997 Hong Kong was returned to the PRC by the United Kingdom and in 1999 Macao was returned by Portugal.
- See also: History of Hong Kong, History of Macau, and History of the People's Republic of China
Present
Today, the Republic of China continues to exist on Taiwan, while the People's Republic of China controls the Chinese mainland. The PRC continues to be dominated by the Communist Party, but the ROC has moved towards democracy. Both states are still officially claiming to be the sole legitimate ruler of all of "China". The ROC had more international support immediately after 1949, but most international diplomatic recognitions have shifted to the PRC. The ROC representative to the United Nations was replaced by the PRC representative in the 1970s.
The ROC has not formally renounced its claim to all of China, or changed its official maps on which its territories include the mainland, including Outer Mongolia, but it has moved away from this identity and increasingly identifies itself as "Taiwan". Presently, the ROC does not pursue any of the territories on mainland China, Tibet, or Mongolia claimed by the PRC. The PRC claims to have succeeded the ROC as the legitimate governing authority of all of China including Taiwan. The PRC has used diplomatic and economic pressure to advance its One China policy, which attempts to displace the ROC in official world organizations such as the World Health Organization and the Olympic Games. Today, there are only twenty-four U.N. member states that still maintain official diplomatic relations with the ROC.
Territory
Historical political divisions
Top-level political divisions of China have altered as
