china

Noun

china (countable and uncountable; plural chinas)

1. (uncountable) Ceramic or porcelain
2. (uncountable) Tableware made from china.
3. (Cockney rhyming slang; shortened from china plate; countable) Mate (i.e., friend).

   All right, me old china?

4. (music, countable) A cymbal, flattened at the perimeter, about 16 to 20 inches (40 to 50 centimetres) across, that is ridden or crashed to produce a distinctive "trashy" sound.

Derived terms

• bone china

Anagrams

• chain

French

Verb

china

1. third-person singular past historic of chiner.

China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity.

China is one of the world's oldest civilizations and is regarded as the oldest continuous civilization. Prior to the 19th century, it possessed one of the most advanced societies and economies in the world; but through successive dynasties it then missed the industrial revolution and began to decline. In the 19th and 20th century, imperialism, internal weakness and civil wars damaged the country and its economy, and led to the overthrow of imperial rule.

In 1949, after major combat ended in the Chinese Civil War, two states calling themselves "China" emerged:

• The People's Republic of China (PRC), established in 1949, commonly known as China, has control over mainland China and the largely self-governing territories of Hong Kong (since 1997) and Macau (since 1999).
• The Republic of China (ROC) established in 1912 in mainland China, now commonly known as Taiwan, has control over the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu.

In the 1950s, change to economic policies in Taiwan transformed the island into a technology-oriented industrialized developed economy after a period of high growth rates and rapid industrialization. In mainland China, in the 1970s, reforms known as the Four Modernizations modernized the agriculture, industry, technology and defense, vastly raising living standards, and making the PRC one of the great powers.

Historically, China's cultural sphere has extended across East Asia as a whole, with Chinese religion, customs, and writing systems being adopted to varying degrees by neighbors such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Through its history, China was the source of many major inventions. It has also one of the world's oldest written language systems. The first evidence of human presence in the region was found at the Zhoukoudian cave. It is one of the earliest known specimens of Homo erectus, now commonly known as the Peking Man, estimated to have lived from 300,000 to 780,000 years ago.