Names

Main article: Names of China

China
"China" in Simplified (top) and Traditional (bottom) Chinese characters
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese	中国
Traditional Chinese	中國
Literal meaning	Middle or Central State[23]
[show]Transcriptions
People's Republic of China
Simplified Chinese	中华人民共和国
Traditional Chinese	中華人民共和國
[show]Transcriptions
Tibetan name
Tibetan	ཀྲུང་ཧྭ་མི་དམངས་སྤྱི མཐུན་རྒྱལ་ཁབ
[show]Transcriptions
Zhuang name
Zhuang	Cunghvaz Yinzminz Gunghozgoz
Mongolian name
Mongolian
[show]Transcriptions
Uyghur name
Uyghur	جۇڭخۇا خەلق جۇمھۇرىيىت
[show]Transcriptions
Manchu name
Manchu script	ᡩᡡᠯᡳᠮᠪᠠᡳ ᡤᡠᡵᡠᠨ
Romanization	Dulimbai Gurun

You may need rendering support to display the Chinese text in this article correctly.

The English name "China" is first attested in Richard Eden's 1555 translation^[j] of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa.^[k][28] The demonym, that is, the name for the people, and adjectival form "Chinese" developed later on the model of Portuguese chinês and French chinois.^[29][l] Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn (چین), and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna (चीन).^[31] Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata (5th century BCE) and the Laws of Manu (2nd century BCE).^[32] The traditional theory, proposed in the 17th century by Martino Martini^[33] and supported by many later scholars, is that the word "China" and its earlier related forms are ultimately derived from the state of Qin (秦, Old Chinese: *Dzin),^[34] the westernmost of the Chinese states during the Zhou dynasty which unified China to form the Qin dynasty.^[35] There are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of "China".^[32]
The official name of the modern state is the "People's Republic of China" (Chinese: 中华人民共和国; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó). The shorter form is "China" Zhōngguó (中国), from zhōng ("central" or "middle") and guó ("state, nation-state"),^[23][m] a term which developed under the Zhou Dynasty in reference to its royal demesne.^[n] 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.^[36] It was often used as a cultural concept to distinguish the Huaxia tribes from perceived "barbarians"^[36] and was the source of the English name "Middle Kingdom".^[38][39] A more literary or inclusive name, alluding to the "land of Chinese civilization", is Zhōnghuá (中华).^[40] It developed during the Wei and Jin dynasties as a contraction of "the central state of the Huaxia".^[36] During the 1950s and 1960s, after the defeat of the Kuomingtang in the Chinese Civil War, it was also referred to as "Communist China" or "Red China", to be differentiated from "Nationalist China" or "Free China".^[41]