Huaxia
The Yellow River Breaches its Course by Ma Yuan, Song Dynasty
Traditional Chinese	華夏
Simplified Chinese	华夏
Transcriptions Gan - Romanization fa4 ha5 Hakka - Romanization fa11 ha55 Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin huáxià - Wade–Giles hua-hsia Min - Hokkien POJ hôa-hā Wu - Romanization gho ya Cantonese (Yue) - Jyutping waa4 haa6

Huaxia (華夏) was a term used in historical Chinese literature and is often used to represent China and the Chinese civilization. Initially, Huaxia seems to have been a somewhat elastic cultural marker, referring neither to race nor ethnicity nor any particular country but rather to a "civilized", settled, literate, agricultural population adhering to common ritual standards, in contrast to "barbarians".^[1]

Etymology[link]

According to the Zuo Zhuan, xia (夏)—which has the meaning of "grand"—was used to signify the ceremonial etiquette of China, while hua (華)—as it means "illustrious"—was used in reference to the beautiful clothing that the Chinese people wore (中國有禮儀之大，故稱夏；有服章之美，謂之華).^[2] The two characters hence describe a civilized society.

Historical development[link]

In the original sense, Huaxia refers to a confederation of tribes—living along the Yellow River—who were the ancestors of what later became the Han ethnic group in China.^[3] The term referred to a specific ethno-cultural group, the Huaxia tribe (華夏族), that was distinct from other groups. During the Warring States (475–221 BC), the self-awareness of the Huaxia identity developed and took hold in ancient China.^[4]

Modern references[link]

Although still used in conjunction, the Chinese characters for Hua and Xia are more often used separately to represent things Chinese. The official Chinese names of both the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) uses the term Huaxia in combination with the term Zhongguo (中國/中国, literally "Middle Kingdom"), that is, as Zhonghua (中華/中华).^[5] The PRC's official Chinese name is Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo (中华人民共和国), while that of the ROC is Zhonghua Minguo (中華民國). Today, the term Zhongguo usually refers to the nation itself and Zhonghua to the civilzation. Hua in particular has become almost synonymous with the Chinese civilization.

The character hua is also often used to refer to people of Chinese ethnicity in the term Huaren (華人/华人) and those overseas Chinese as Huaqiao (華僑/华侨).

See also[link]

• Descendants of the Yan and Huang Emperors
• History of China
• Hua-Yi distinction
• Nine Provinces

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Cioffi-Revilla, Claudio; Lai, David (1995). "War and Politics in Ancient China, 2700 B.C. to 722 B.C.". The Journal of Conflict Resolution 39 (3). 
• Guo, Shirong; Feng, Lisheng (1997). "Chinese minorities". Encyclopaedia of the history of science, technology, and medicine in non-western cultures. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7923-4066-9. 
• Holcombe, Charles (2010). A history of East Asia: From the origins of civilization to the twenty-first century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-73164-5. 
• Liu, Xuediao (2005) (in Chinese). 中國文化史講稿. Taipei: 知書房出版集團. ISBN 978-986-7640-65-9.