China proper (also Inner China) or Eighteen Provinces was a term used by Western writers on the Qing Dynasty to express a distinction between the core and frontier regions of China. There is no fixed extent for China proper, as many administrative, cultural, and linguistic shifts have occurred in Chinese history. One definition refers to the original area of Chinese civilization, the North China Plain; another to the "Eighteen Provinces" system of the Ming Dynasty. Still, the expression is relatively unknown in nowadays China.
Read more about China Proper: Origin of The Concept, Modern, Extent
Famous quotes containing the words china and/or proper:
“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve, I’ve dreamed of havin’ my own things about me. My spinet over there and a table here. My own chairs to rest upon and a dresser over there in that corner, and my own china and pewter shinin’ about me.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“Exaggeration is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no man into the world, without adding a small excess of his proper quality. Given the planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so, to every creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper path, a shove to put it on its way; in every instance, a slight generosity, a drop too much.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)