Why is there a place in japan called chugoku

Question

I always thought that chuugoku means china in japanese, but I recently heard that there is a place in japan called chuugoku. So doesnt that confuse people

Answer 1

People who talk about Chuugoku don't get the region confused China. People generally tend to use these as part of a converstaion. You can tell by the context of the rest of what the person is talking about as to where they are refering to. This happens with many words and places.

Example:

In the United States there is a Rome, GA, and Paris, TX for example. If you live in Dallas and say I am driving to Paris people are going to pretty much figure out which one you are talking about.

So If you live in Kobe and say you are going to catch the express train to Chuugoku and visit Itsukushima-jinja then they will pretty much know which you are talking about.

KB is also correct in saying we use Region name followed by Chiho. I lived in Kansai Chiho or Kansai Region which is sometimes also called Kinki Chiho or Kinki Region.

Answer 2

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. Strictly speaking, today's Chūgoku covers only the middle countries to the west of Kyoto, along the San'indō (山陰道) and San'yōdō (山陽道) roads.

In Japanese, the characters 中国 and the reading Chūgoku are also used to mean "China" (more precisely, the People's Republic of China since the Republic of China is commonly referred to as "Taiwan" in Japanese). The same characters are used in Chinese to refer to China, but pronounced Zhōngguó lit. "Middle Kingdom" or "Middle Country" (Wade Giles: Chungkuo).

To avoid confusing "Chūgoku region" with China, the Chūgoku region is also called the "San'in-San'yō region". San'in is the northern part facing the Sea of Japan, which indicates the "shady side of the mountain". San'yō is the southern part facing the Inland Sea, which indicates the "sunny side of the mountain". These names originated from the marked differences in climate.

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Answer 3

In short, it's only a coincidence.

China was not called as "Chugoku" in Asia untill recently.

Answer 4

>doesnt that confuse people

In most case, can distinguish in context.

slightly related question:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

I think, to use "Sina" in japanese, It will become more clearly without depending on context.

Answer 5

I've got confused a little when I was 3rd grader but not any more.

When you say you go to Chugoku that always means  you go to China.

As an answer above we call Chugoku region as Chugoku chiho while we can call Kanto region just simply Kanto its because a little confusing if we don't distinguish them.

Answer 6

>So doesn't that confuse people?

No, it doesn't.

When we say Chugoku (China), we say Chugoku. But when we mean Chugoku Chiho, we say Chugoku Chiho.

So we don't say Chugoku to mean Chugoku Chiho.

Just think that Chugoku Chiho is one word.

And I've never heard anybody that I know said Chugoku to mean Chugoku Chiho becaue Chugoku is China.

And also when we study the regions of Japan, not the prefectures of Japan, we learn that we have Kanto Chiho (Kanto region), Tohoku Chiho, Shinetsu Chiho,Hokuriku Chiho and so forth. So we don't get confused Chugoku Chiho with Chugoku.

By the way, I'm from Kanto region, so some Japanese people from different regions might have a different opinon???