English 'China' comes via Portuguese and Persian from Sanskrit Cīna, probably derived from the Qin dynasty that first unified China — the same country calls itself Zhōngguó ('Middle Kingdom'), and the common noun 'china' for porcelain preserves the trade connection.
A country in East Asia, the most populous nation in the world and one of the oldest continuous civilizations.
English 'China' derives via Latin and Portuguese from Persian 'Chīn' (چین), which came from Sanskrit 'Cīna' (चीन). The Sanskrit name is generally believed to derive from the Qin dynasty (秦, 221–206 BCE), whose first emperor unified China. The Qin name would have traveled westward via trade routes. However, some
The English common noun 'china' (meaning porcelain) comes from the country name, because Chinese porcelain was so superior that the material became synonymous with its origin. Meanwhile, Russian 'Kitay' (Китай) comes from an entirely different source — the Khitan people of Manchuria — showing that different Eurasian peoples named China after whichever part they encountered first.