page_title: China proper
section_title: Origin of the concept
hierarchical_section_title: China proper / Origin of the concept
caption_attribution_description: English: A Map of China Proper, Manchuria (Dongbei/Manchukuo), Mongolia, Sinkiang (Xinjiang), and Tibet (Xizang). The map includes areas presently administered by Russia, Tajikistan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Burma but generally respects the claims of British India with regard to its own disputed border with the Republic of China. It notably respects the claims to Japan's ownership of the island of Formosa (Taiwan).
context_page_description: China proper, Inner China or the Eighteen Provinces was a term used by Western writers on the Manchu 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 Central Plain; another to the "Eighteen Provinces" system of the Qing dynasty. There is no direct translation for "China proper" in the Chinese language due to differences in terminology used by the Qing to refer to the regions and the expression is controversial among scholars, particularly in China, due to national territorial claims.
context_section_description: It is not clear when the concept of "China proper" in the Western world appeared. However, it is plausible that historians during the age of empires and the fast-changing borders in the eighteenth century, applied it to distinguish China's 18-provinces from its newly acquired properties.  This would also apply to Great Britain proper versus the British Empire, which would encompass vast lands overseas. The same would apply to France proper in contrast to the French Empire of the time, which Napoleon managed to expand all the way to Moscow.
  According to Harry Harding, the concept can date back to 1827.  But as early as in 1795, William Winterbotham adopted this concept in his book. When describing the Chinese Empire under the Qing dynasty, Winterbotham divided it into three parts: China proper, Chinese Tartary, and the States Tributary to China. He adopted the opinions of Du Halde and Grosier and suspected that the name of "China" came from Qin dynasty.  He then said: "China, properly so called,... comprehends from north to south eighteen degrees; its extent from east to west being somewhat less..."
  However, to introduce China proper, Winterbotham still used the outdated 15-province system of the Ming dynasty, which the Qing dynasty used until 1662. Although Ming dynasty also had 15 basic local divisions, Winterbotham uses the name of Kiang-nan (江南, Jiāngnán) province, which had been called South Zhili (南直隶, Nán-Zhílì) during the Ming dynasty and was renamed to Kiang-nan (i.e., Jiangnan) in 1645, the second year after the Manchu Qing dynasty overthrew the Ming. This 15-province system was gradually replaced by the 18-province system between 1662 and 1667.  Using the 15-province system and the name of Kiang-nan Province indicates that the concept of China proper probably had appeared between 1645 and 1662 and this concept may reflect the idea that identifies China as the territory of the former Ming dynasty after the Qing conquest of the Ming.
  The concept of "China proper" also appeared before this 1795 book.  It can be found in The Gentleman's Magazine, published in 1790, and The Monthly Review, published in 1749. In the nineteenth century, the term "China proper" was sometimes used by Chinese officials when they were communicating in foreign languages. For instance, the Qing ambassador to Britain Zeng Jize used it in an English language article, which he published in 1887.
  Dulimbai Gurun is the Manchu name for China (中國, Zhongguo; "Middle Kingdom"). After conquering the Ming, the Manchu Qing identified their state as "China" (Zhongguo), and referred to it as "Dulimbai Gurun" in Manchu. The Manchu Qing Emperors equated the lands of the Qing state (including both "China proper" and present day Manchuria, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Tibet and other areas as "China" in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi ethnic state, rejecting the idea that China only meant Han areas in "China proper", proclaiming that both Han and non-Han peoples were part of "China", using "China" to refer to the Qing in official documents, international treaties, and foreign affairs, and the "Chinese language" (Dulimbai gurun i bithe) referred to Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, and the term "Chinese people" (中國人, Zhongguo ren; Manchu: Dulimbai gurun i niyalma) referred to all Han, Manchus, and Mongol subjects of the Qing.
  When the Qing conquered Dzungaria in 1759, they proclaimed that the new land was absorbed into "China" (Dulimbai Gurun) in a Manchu language memorial. The Qing expounded on their ideology that they were bringing together the "outer" non-Han Chinese like the Inner Mongols, Eastern Mongols, Oirat Mongols, and Tibetans together with the "inner" Han Chinese, into "one family" united in the Qing state, showing that the diverse subjects of the Qing were all part of one family, the Qing used the phrase "Zhong Wai Yi Jia" (中外一家) or "Nei Wai Yi Jia" (內外一家, "interior and exterior as one family"), to convey this idea of "unification" of the different peoples. A Manchu language version of a treaty with the Russian Empire
caption: A 1944 map of China Proper, Manchuria (Northeast China), Mongolia, Sinkiang (Xinjiang), and Tibet from the War Information Office propaganda film Why We Fight: The Battle of China. (Note that the outer borders here include several areas formerly claimed by the Republic of China.)
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