China (
traditional Chinese
:
中
國
;
simplified Chinese
:
中
国
;
Hanyu Pinyin
:
Zhōngguó
(
help
·
info
)
;
Tongyong Pinyin
:
Jhongguó
;
Wade-Giles
(
Mandarin
): Chung¹kuo²) is a
cultural region
, an ancient
civilization
, and a
national
or
multinational
entity in
East Asia
.
China is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, consisting of states and
cultures
dating back more than six millennia. It has the world's longest continuously used
written language system
, and the source of
such major inventions
as what the British scholar and biochemist
Joseph Needham
called the
Four Great Inventions of Ancient China
:
paper
, the
compass
,
gunpowder
, and
printing
.
The stalemate of the last
Chinese Civil War
has resulted in two political entities using the name China: the
People's Republic of China (PRC)
, commonly known as China, which controls
mainland China
,
Hong Kong
, and
Macau
; and the
Republic of China (ROC)
, commonly known as
Taiwan
, which controls the island of
Taiwan
and some
nearby islands
. |