Zhou (country subdivision)
| Zhou | |||||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||
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| Chinese | |||||||||||||||||
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| Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||
| Vietnamese | châu | ||||||||||||||||
| Korean name | |||||||||||||||||
| Hangul | |||||||||||||||||
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| Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||
| Hiragana | |||||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | zhōu |
| Wade–Giles | chou1 |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Jyutping | zau1 |
| Southern Min | |
| Hokkien POJ | chiu |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Revised Romanization | ju |
| McCune–Reischauer | chu |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Revised Hepburn | shū |
Zhou (州) were historical political divisions of China. Formally established during the Han Dynasty, zhou continued to exist until the establishment of the Republic of China—a period of over 2000 years. Zhou were also previously used in Korea (Korean: 주, ju), Vietnam (Vietnamese: châu), and Japan (Hepburn: shū).
Zhou is typically rendered by several terms in the English language:
The Tang Dynasty also established fǔ (府, "prefectures"), zhou of special importance such as capitals and other major cities. By the Ming and Qing, fǔ became predominant divisions within Chinese provinces. The word fǔ (府) was typically attached to the name of each prefecture's capital city, thus both Chinese and Western maps and geographical works would often call the respective cities Hangzhou-fu, Wenzhou-fu, Wuchang-fu, etc.
Following the Meiji Restoration, fu was also used in Japanese for the urban prefectures of the most important cities; today, it is still used in the Japanese names for the Osaka and Kyoto Prefectures.
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