A country of eastern Asia.Its ancient civilization traditionally dates to c.2700 b.c..Beijing is the capital and Shanghai the largest city.Population,1.295 billion.
Our term china for porcelain or ceramic ware is a shortening of chinaware and probably china dishes.Although the word china is identical in spelling to the name of the country,there are 16th- and 17th-century spellings like chiney,cheny,and cheney that reflect the borrowing into English of the Persian term for this porcelain,chºº.} The Persian word and the Sanskrit word cº³¡,} “Chinese people,” which gave us the English name for the country,go back to the Chinese word Qin,the name of the dynasty that ruled China from 221 to 206 b.c.
