VARIOUS DESIGNATIONS.
The Chinese have many names to designate themselves and the land they inhabit. One of the most ancient is Tien Hia, meaning ‘Beneath the Sky,’ and denoting the World; another, almost as ancient, is Sz’ Hai, i.e., ‘[all within] the Four Seas,’ while a third is Chung Kwoh, or ‘Middle Kingdom.’ This dates from the establishment of the Chau dynasty, about B.C. 1150, when the imperial family so called its own special state in Honan because it was surrounded by all the others. The name was retained as the empire grew, and thus has strengthened the popular belief that it is really situated in the centre of the earth; Chung Kwoh jin, or ‘men of the Middle Kingdom,’ denotes the Chinese. All these names indicate the vanity and ignorance of the people respecting their geographical position and their rank among the nations; they have not been alone in this foible, for the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all had terms for their possessions which intimated their own ideas of their superiority; while, too, the area of none of those monarchies, in their widest extent, equalled that of China Proper. The family of Tsin also established the custom, since continued, of calling the country by the name of the dynasty then reigning; but, while the brief duration of that house of forty-four years was not long enough to give it much currency among the people, succeeding dynasties, by their talents and prowess, imparted their own as permanent appellations to the people and country. The terms Han-jin and Han-tsz’ (i.e., men of Han or sons of Han) are now in use by the people to denote themselves: the last also means a “brave man.” Tang-jin, or ‘Men of Tang,’ is quite as frequently heard in the southern provinces, where the phrase Tang Shan, or ‘Hills of Tang,’ denotes the whole country. The Buddhists of India called the land Chin-tan, or the ‘Dawn,’ and this appellation has been used in Chinese writings of that sect.
The present dynasty calls the empire Ta Tsing Kwoh, or ‘Great Pure Kingdom;’ but the people themselves have refused the corresponding term of Tsing-jin, or ‘Men of Tsing.’ The empire is also sometimes termed Tsing Chau, i.e., ‘[land of the] Pure Dynasty,’ by metonymy for the family that rules it. The term now frequently heard in western countries—the Celestial Empire—is derived from Tien Chau, i.e., ‘Heavenly Dynasty,’ meaning the kingdom which the dynasty appointed by heaven rules over; but the term Celestials, for the people of that kingdom, is entirely of foreign manufacture, and their language could with difficulty be made to express such a patronymic. The phrase Lí Min, or ‘Black-haired Race,’ is a common appellation; the expressions Hwa Yen, the ‘Flowery Language,’ and Chung Hwa Kwoh, the ‘Middle Flowery Kingdom,’ are also frequently used for the written language of the country, because the Chinese consider themselves to be among the most polished and civilized of all nations—which is the sense of hwa in these phrases. The phrase Nui Tí, or ‘Inner Land,’ is often employed to distinguish it from countries beyond their borders, regarded as the desolate and barbarous regions of the earth. Hwa Hia (the Glorious Hia) is an ancient term for China, the Hia dynasty being the first of the series; Tung Tu, or “Land of the East,” is a name used in Mohammedan writings alone.
The present ruling dynasty has extended the limits of the empire far beyond what they were under the Ming princes, and nearly to their extent in the reign of Kublai, A.D. 1290. In 1840, its borders were well defined, reaching from Sagalien I. on the north-east, in lat. 48° 10′ N. and long. 144° 50′ E., to Hainan I. in the China Sea, on the south, in lat. 18° 10′ N., and westward to the Belur-tag, in long. 74° E., inclosing a continuous area, estimated, after the most careful valuation by McCulloch, at 5,300,000 square miles. The longest line which could be drawn in this vast region, from the south-western part of Ílí, bordering on Kokand, north-easterly to the sea of Okhotsk, is 3,350 miles; its greatest breadth is 2,100 miles, from the Outer Hing-an or Stanovoi Mountains to the peninsula of Luichau in Kwangtung:—the first measuring 71 degrees of longitude, and the last over 34 of latitude.
Since that year the process of disintegration has been going on, and the cession of Hongkong to the British has been followed by greater partitions to Russia, which have altogether reduced it more than half a million of square miles on the north-east and west. Its limits on the western frontiers are still somewhat undefined. The greatest breadth is from Albazin on the Amur, nearly south to Hainan, 2,150 miles; and the longest line which can be drawn in it runs from Sartokh in Tibet, north-east to the junction of the Usuri River with the Amur.
The form of the empire approaches a rectangle. It is bounded on the east and south-east by various arms and portions of the Pacific Ocean, beginning at the frontier of Corea, and called on European maps the gulfs of Liautung and Pechele, the Yellow Sea, channel of Formosa, China Sea, and Gulf of Tonquin. Cochinchina and Burmah border on the provinces of Kwangtung, Kwangsí, and Yunnan, in the south-west; but most of the region near that frontier is inhabited by half-independent tribes of Laos, Kakyens, Singphos, and others. The southern ranges of the Himalaya separate Assam, Butan, Sikkim, Nípal and states in India from Tibet, whose western border is bounded by the nominally dependent country of Ladak, or if that be excluded, by the Kara-korum Mountains. The kingdoms or states of Cashmere, Badakshan, Kokand, and the Kirghís steppe, lie upon the western frontiers of Little Tibet, Ladak, and Ílí, as far north as the Russian border; the high range of the Belur-tag or Tsung-ling separates the former countries from the Chinese territory in this quarter. Russia is conterminous with China from the Kirghís steppe along the Altai chain and Kenteh range to the junction of the Argun and the Amur, from whence the latter river and its tributary, the Usuri, form the dividing line to the border of Corea, a total stretch of 5,300 miles. The circuit of the whole empire is 14,000 miles, or considerably over half the circumference of the globe. These measurements, it must be remembered, are of the roughest character. The coast line from the mouth of the river Yaluh in Corea to that of the Annam in Cochinchina is not far from 4,400 miles. This immense country comprises about one-third of the continent, and nearly one-tenth of the habitable part of the globe; and, next to Russia, is the largest empire which has existed on the earth.
It will, perhaps, contribute to a better comprehension of the area of the Chinese Empire to compare it with some other countries. Russia is nearly 6,500 miles in its greatest length, about 1,500 in its average breadth, and measures 8,369,144[3] square miles, or one-seventh of the land on the globe. The United States of America extends about 3,000 miles from Monterey on the Pacific in a north-easterly direction to Maine, and about 1,700 from Lake of the Woods to Florida. The area of this territory is now estimated at 2,936,166 square miles, with a coast line of 5,120 miles. The area of the British Empire is not far from 7,647,000 square miles, but the boundaries of some of the colonies in Hindostan and South Africa are not definitely laid down; the superficies of the two colonies of Australia and New Zealand is nearly equal to that of all the other possessions of the British crown.
GENERAL DIVISIONS.
The Chinese themselves divide the empire into three principal parts, rather by the different form of government in each, than by any geographical arrangement.
I. The Eighteen Provinces, including, with trivial additions, the country conquered by the Manchus in 1664.