# Szechuan
## English
### Alternative forms

* Sichuan
* Szechwan

### Etymology

From the Postal Romanization of Nanjing court dialect Mandarin 四川 (Sìchuān).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈsɛʃ.wɑn/, /ˈsɛt͡ʃ.wɑn/, /ʃɛʃ.wɑn/

### Proper noun

Szechuan
* Alternative form of Sichuan
** 1913, Ernest Henry Wilson, A Naturalist In Western China, With Vasculum, Camera, And Gun: Being Some Account of Eleven Years' Travel, Exploration, and Observation in the More Remote Parts of the Flowery Kingdom‎, volume I, London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., page 104:THE plain of Chengtu is the only large expanse of level ground in the great province of Szechuan; it is also one of the richest, most fertile, and thickly populated areas in the whole of China.
** [1919, John C. Ferguson, Outlines of Chinese Art‎, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, →OCLC, page 116:There is a portrait of Confucius at Ch’ü-fu attributed to Wu and another striking picture representing the struggle of a tortoise with a serpent, kuei she t’u, which is in the Prefect's official residence at Ch’êng-tu, Sze-ch’uan.]
** 1967, Dennis J. Doolin, Charles P. Ridley, THE GENESIS OF A MODEL CITIZEN IN COMMUNIST CHINA: TRANSLATION AND ANALYSIS OF SELECTED CHINESE COMMUNIST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL READERS‎, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, page 476:Li Po is also the author of this poem. Pai-ti is on a mountain in eastern Feng-chieh county in Szechuan Province.
** 1973, Rewi Alley, 中国见闻 [Travels in China, 1966-71]‎, Peking: New World Press, →OCLC, page 25:The highway is one that was built to enable the Chiang Kai-shek government to evacuate to Chungking in the War of Resistance days, and Huayuan, our objective, is a county town in the middle of a high mountain plateau, only 25 kilometres from the Szechuan border.
** 1980, Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, edited by Harold C. Hinton, How the People's Government Works, 1952 (The People's Republic of China 1949-1979)‎, volume 1, Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc., →ISBN, page 58:In far-off southern Szechuan province last summer, while helping the peasants to effect the land reform, I saw group after group of young peasants, men and women, volunteer to help the aggressors away from our border and help neighboring Korea.
** 1981 March 22, “Chinese opera delights audience at international arts festival”, in Free China Weekly‎, volume XXII, number 11, Taipei, page 2:Szechuan Province in southeastern China is well endowed with natural resources, fine landscapes and a long rich history. In early times, the several states which made Szechuan their home produced a line of famous generals whose lives have become the subject of myth, literary works and operas. Szechuan opera is one of the most classical of all Chinese opera styles.
** 2003 October 5, Corinne LaBalme, “WHAT'S DOING IN; Paris”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 27 May 2015, Travel‎:But long before that, Parisians will have had ample chance to familiarize themselves with Chinese culture. From Oct. 14 to Jan. 28, the Hôtel de Ville, […] showcases recent Bronze Age excavations in the Szechuan Province, in western China, including artifacts from the Jinsha site (1200-1000 B.C.) discovered in February 2001.
** 2008, Simon Foster, “The Three Gorges”, in Adventure Guide: China (Hunter Travel Guides)‎, Hunter Publishing, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 263:This gargantuan population and the city’s strategic importance led to Chongqing’s separation from its parent province, Szechuan, in 1997, and it was designated as a “specially administered municipality,” controlled directly by the central government.
** 2012, Saul David, editor, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Warfare‎, Dorling Kindersley, →ISBN, page 283:Despite this aerial assistance, the Chinese were again forced to withdraw westward, this time to Chongqing in the mountains of Szechuan.
** For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Szechuan.

#### Derived terms

* Szechuanese
* Szechuan button
* Szechuan pepper
* szechuanensis
* Szechuan lovage

### Further reading

* “Szechuan, pn.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
* “Szechuan”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.