Manchuria - Etymology and Names

Etymology and Names

"Manchuria" is a translation of the Manchu word Manju (Chinese language: Mǎnzhōu). According to the Manchu Veritable Records, the name Manju was originally given by the legendary dynastic founder Bukūri Yongšon to the country he established when he united the three warring clans of Odoli, at the location of the modern city of Dunhua in Jilin province. This name was used in Chinese documents until the early 20th century, when Manchuria was converted into three provinces by the late Qing government. Since then, the "Three Eastern Provinces" (東三省) was officially used by the Qing government in China to refer to this region, and the post of Viceroy of Three Northeast Provinces (東三省總督) was established to take charge of these provinces. After the 1911 revolution, which resulted in the collapse of the Manchu-established Qing Dynasty, the name of the region where the Manchus originated was known as the Northeast in official documents in the newly founded Republic of China, in addition to the "Three Northeast Provinces".

In current Chinese parlance, an inhabitant of "the Northeast", or Northeast China, is a "Northeasterner" (Dōngběi rén). "The Northeast" is a term that expresses the entire region, encompassing its history, culture, traditions, dialects, cuisines and so forth, as well as the "Three East Provinces" or "Three Northeast Provinces" (東三省 or 東北三省), which replaced the concept of "Manchuria" in the early 20th century. Though geographically also located in the northeastern part of China, other provinces such as Hebei are not considered to be a part of "the Northeast". After the Second Sino-Japanese War, the People's Republic of China has refused recognition of the name Mǎnzhōu (Manchuria), only using "the Northeast" for the region to avoid acknowledging the Japanese imperial legacy in the area; the title of Manchuria is still often associated in China with the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.

Manchuria has historically also been referred to as Guandong (traditional Chinese: 關東; simplified Chinese: 关东; pinyin: Guāndōng), which literally means "east of the pass", a reference to Shanhai Pass in Qinhuangdao in today's Hebei province, at the eastern end of the Great Wall of China. This usage is seen in the expression Chuǎng Guāndōng (literally "Rushing into Guandong") referring to the mass migration of Han Chinese to Manchuria in the 19th and 20th centuries. An alternate name, Guanwai (關外; 关外; Guānwài; "outside of the pass"), was also used for the region. The name Guandong later came to be used more narrowly for the area of the Kwantung Leased Territory on the Liaodong Peninsula.