What was china called before it was called china?

Question

china use to be called what?

Answer 1

China was also called (by Europeans) "Cathay" before it was called China. As to what the Chinese people called their country, usually they used the term "Zhong Hua" or 中華, which is an older version of the current "Zhong Guo" or 中國.

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Answer 2

China is short for People's Republic of China, meaning Chinese people are the core of the whole nation. And before that, China was ruled by different feudal rulers for more than 2000 years. Each dynasties had its own name, and the name represented the people in that distinctive era.

Answer 3

China has a history of more that five thousand years, each ruler or successful revolutionist rename the country with their own chosen name, the recognized orthodox ones are: Hsia, Shang, Chou, Chun-Chiou period, Tzan-Kuo period, CHIN (built great wall), HAN, San-Kuo(three Kingdom), Way, Gin, NanPei-Chaw(north and south separate rule), TANG, SONG, YUEN(genhis kan's name for China), MING, CHING, then Republic of China and Peoples RepublicOf China.-- (i freely spell each names and didnot use the now a days new chinese pin-yins way of spelling here cause people know PEKING better than BEIJING if it comes to history).
so each period has a different name, and "CHINA" came from " CHIN " -- the early dynasty when emperor Shi-Huang-Ti built the great wall and united China, it is common doings of Chinese people to add an "AH" to the begining or end of someone's name when verbally calling him, so "CHIN-AH" is how you call someone from CHIN, eventually CHINA was the western name adopted.
Actually each period usually coexisted many other small countries which are consider China too-- just like today, asides from Peoples Republic of China, there still coexist a Republic of China (in Taiwan) which is 96 years old now, and there are many people staying in Taiwan claiming their country to be called Taiwan, after few hundred years they all are China, so this is a roughly answer, no one can enlist all the names of china in a limited space like this.

Answer 4

Dynasty

Answer 5

Dynasty

Answer 6

The middle kingdom

Answer 7

most people referred to it as "zhong-guo" (middle country). they still do, (at least in Taiwan). here we also refer to it as Da-Lu (the mainland.)

It has had various names based on the dominant warlord of each era, just as the warlords ruling it now pose under the name 'People's Republic'. (despite not representing any people other than themselves.)

Answer 8

china is it's english name, chinas modern name is zhonguo in chinese and america is meiguo

Answer 9

CHIN

Then later western influence it call "china"

Answer 10

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