The Chinese refer to their own country as "Zhongguo". What does Zhongguo literally mean?

The characters in the picture are 中 ("zhong", meaning "middle"), and 国 ("guo" meaning "kingdom" or "country"): put them together and you have "middle kingdom". All of the incorrect answers are the literal English translations of Chinese names for other countries: 法国 ("faguo" literally meaning "The country of the law", used for France), 美国 ("meiguo" literally meaning "The beautiful country", used for America / USA), 英国 ("yingguo", literally meaning "The heroic country", used for Britain / UK)

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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26 Comments

Gery Tillmanns

Good question.

Trevor Williams

While Middle Kingdom is considered a “Poetic Sobriquet” Central State would be more accurate

Leslie Hayden

I had learned that it meant central state. I rolled the dice on middle kingdom and won this time around.

catmom

Marian Spitzig, I knew this by process of elimination.

catmom

Marianne, I have a friend of mine that taught himself this.

Kath Thomson

Another country whose name was decided by other countries, particularly Western ones.

John McLardie

It literally means 'central state/s' (there being no plural inflection in Chinese). This gave rise to the common, poetic soubriquet 'Middle Kingdom', the land in the middle.

Marianne

I learnt this when studying Chinese calligraphy.

Alan Waites

Or more specifically The names of China include the many contemporary and historical appellations given in various languages for the East Asian country known as Zhōngguó (中國/中国, "central state") in its official language.

Suraya Choudhury

I wrote beautiful country !

Janice Lea Vanlandingham

Carol Chong, lol

Janice Lea Vanlandingham

Lynne Zeman, Google it lol

Lynne Zeman

It would have been interesting to know why the Chinese thought of the country being the "Middle Kingdom " rather than the interpretations of the symbols. What does Middle Kindom represent? Is it a middle earth type of thing?