China ( ; Wade-Giles (Mandarin): Chung¹kuo²) is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia.

China has one of the world's oldest people and 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 is the source of many major inventions, such as what the British scholar and biochemist Joseph Needham called the "four great inventions of Ancient China": paper, the compass, gunpowder, and printing. Historically, China's cultural sphere has extended across East Asia as a whole, with Chinese religion, customs, and writing systems being adopted to varying degrees by neighbors such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

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, has control over mainland China, and the largely self-governing territories of Hong Kong (since 1997) and Macau (since 1999).
• the Republic of China (ROC), commonly known as Taiwan, has control over the islands of Taiwan, Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu.

Etymology

main: Names of China

China

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 the phonetic "cheen", which is considered the possible root of the word "China".

Zhōngguó the Middle Kingdom

China is known as 'Zhōngguó' in Mandarin and pinyin (中國 in traditional chinese or 中国 in simplified chinese). The character zhōng means "middle" or central; the letter, guó, means land, kingdom or country. An appropriate English translation would be "middle kingdom".

The name "Zhōngguó" first appeared in the Classic of History (6th century BCE), 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 "Zhōngguó" was originally meant to refer to the capital of the sovereign, to differ from the capital of his vassals. The use of "Zhōngguó" implied a claim of political legitimacy, and "Zhōngguó" 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 "Zhōngguó".