where does the country name china come from
Names of China The names of China include the many contemporary and historical appellations given in various languages for the East Asian country known as Zhongguo (中國/中国) in its official language. China, the name in English for the country, was derived from Portuguese in the 16th century, and became popular in the mid 19th century.[1] It is believed to be a borrowing from Middle Persian, and some have traced it further back to Sanskrit. It is also generally thought that the ultimate source of the name China is the Chinese word "Qin" (Chinese: 秦), the name of the dynasty that unified China but also existed as a state for many centuries prior. There are however other alternative suggestions for the origin of the word.
History of China Written records of the history of China can be found from as early as 1500 BC[1][2] under the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC).[3] Ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian (c. 100 BC) and the Bamboo Annals (before 296 BC) describe a Xia dynasty (c. 2070–1600 BC), which had no system of writing on a durable medium, before the Shang.[3][4] The Yellow River is said to be the cradle of Chinese civilization, although cultures originated at various regional centers along both the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. These Neolithic civilizations, known as the Yellow River and Yangtze civilizations, arose millennia ago. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest civilizations,[5] and is regarded as one of the cradles of civilization.[6]