Why is the region in Japan (Chugoku) named after China (Chugoku)?

Question

Why is the region in Japan (Chugoku) named after China (Chugoku)?

Answer 1

The name literally means "middle country", a relic of a historical division of Japan into "near countries" (近国 kingoku, but in modern parlance Kinki), "middle countries" (chūgoku), and "far countries" (遠国 ongoku), based on distance from the capital Nara or Kyoto.

A lot of kanji characters mean one thing in Japanese and another in Chinese, simply because the root of the two languages are the same.

Answer 2

It's not.

Chugoku (中国) in this case literally means 'Middle country', and it is a historical name for western region of Honshu island, includes prefectures  Okayama, Hiroshima, Tottori, Shimane, and Yamaguchi.

Chugoku as in the country China is a shortened name for the full name: 中華人民共和国 (People's republic of China)

Answer 3

>region in Japan (Chugoku) named after China (Chugoku)?

wrong.

In the case of a word means China, The word "chuugoku (中国)" abbreviation for "CHUka minKOKU (Republic of China)(中華民国)" or "CHUka jinmin kyouwaKOKU (People's Republic of China)(中華人民共和国)".

ROC(Republic Of China) was founded in 1912, PRC(People's Republic of China) was founded in 1949.

But the word that means a reagion in Japan existed in 1394 at the latest.

Before WW2 finished, the word means China in Japanese is "Sina (支那)".

"Sina" have common derivation with "China (English), "Sino (French)", etc....

Answer 4

Well, I'm sure this question could be answered better, but from my knowledge Japan was created from the Chinese, long, long, long ago. So perhaps that's their way of remembrance of that? (Not that they'd forgot, sort of a "symbolic" thing.)

I'm not positive on any of that, it's mearly my take and two cents. :) But I hope it was somewhat helpful.