The Qing dynasty was founded by the JurchenAisin Gioro clan in Manchuria in the 17th century and became known by various names. Although it was established by the Manchu people, a Tungusic people ethnically unrelated to the native Chinese, it was widely known in English as China or the Chinese Empire both during its existence, especially internationally, and after the fall of the dynasty.
The name Great Qingfirst appeared in 1636. There are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The name may have been selected in reaction to the name of the Ming dynasty, which is composed of elements "sun" and "moon", both associated with the fire element of the Chinese zodiacal system. The character Qīng is composed of "water" and "azure", both associated with the water element. This association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water. The water imagery of the new name may also have had Buddhist overtones of perspicacity and enlightenment and connections with the Bodhisattva Manjusri. "Qing" is also the name of several rivers in Manchuria, at one of which Nurhaci won a key battle in 1619. It may also be possible to come from the Manchu namedaicing, which may have been derived from a Mongolian word that means "warrior".
The name China for the Qing
After conquering China proper, the Manchus commonly called their state Zhongguo, and referred to it as Dulimbai Gurun in Manchu. The emperors equated the lands of the Qing state as Zhongguo in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi-ethnic state, and rejecting the idea that Zhongguo only meant Han areas. The Qing emperors proclaimed that both Han and non-Han peoples were part of Zhongguo. They used both Zhongguo and "Qing" to refer to their state in official documents. "Chinese language" included Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, and "Chinese people" referred to all subjects of the empire. When the Qing conquered Dzungaria in 1759, they proclaimed that the new land was absorbed into "China" in a Manchu-language memorial. The Manchu-language version of the Convention of Kyakhta, a treaty with the Russian Empire concerning criminal jurisdiction over bandits, referred to people from the Qing as "people from the Central Kingdom ". The Qing became widely known internationally in English as "China" or the "Chinese Empire", with China being the standard English translation of Zhongguo or Dulimbai Gurun. They were commonly used in international communications and treaties in addition to English-language mass media and newspapers etc. during the Qing.
;China ;Chinese Empire ;Middle Kingdom ;Qing Empire, Ching Empire, or Ch'ing Empire ;Empire of the Great Qing ;Great Qing ;Great Qing state ;Manchu dynasty ;Manchu empire
Historical names or romanizations officially used during the Qing dynasty in English
;Ta Tsing Empire ;Tai Ching Ti Kuo ;China ;Chinese Empire ;Empire of China
Other (unofficial) historical names in English
;Cathay ;Celestial Empire ;Tartar Chinese Empire ;Tartar Chinese dynasty ;Manchu Tartar dynasty ;Ta-tsing dynasty
Names in other languages within the Qing dynasty and contexts
Because the Qing dynasty was established by the Manchu people, a Tungusic people who saw themselves as heirs to both the Son of Heaven and earlier multi-ethnic empires, and because the empire had extended its control into Inner Asia, the court commonly used Chinese, Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan, and Uighur names for their realm. The Qing dynasty was established in Chinese as Great Qing in 1636, but other Chinese names containing the name "Qing" had appeared in official documents such as treaties, including Da Qing Guo, Da Qing Di Guo, and Zhong Hua Da Qing Guo, in addition to the name Zhongguo. In the Chinese-language versions of its treaties and its maps of the world, the Qing government used "Qing" and "Zhongguo" interchangeably. Apart from Zhongguo, the Qing court routinely used other terms as well in referring to its state in Chinese, such as guochao, wojie , and wochao or benchao. But it treated these titles and Zhongguo as interchangeable. For example, the Chinese version of the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk used Zhongguo as the state title, but in a different version of the same treaty, it was replaced by the term "our territory" : "All of the land to the south of the Xing’an mountains and all branches of the Heilong River belong to our territory". The Manchu term Dulimbai gurun is the standard translation for the Chinese terms Zhongguo, Zhongyuan, and Hua and appeared in official documents produced by the Qing court beginning in 1689, if not earlier. The Manchu name for the state was Daicing Gurun. While the Manchurian nameDaiqing sounds like a phonetic rendering of Chinese Dà Qīng or Dai Ching, may in fact have been derived from a Mongolian word ", дайчин" that means "warrior". Daicing Gurun may therefore have meant "warrior state", a pun that was only intelligible to Manchu and Mongol people. In the later part of the dynasty, however, even the Manchus themselves had forgotten this possible meaning. Similar to in the Chinese language, Dulimbai Gurun is used alongside Daicing Gurun to refer to the Qing dynasty during the Qing. In the Mongolian language, the state was always known as "Чин улс" Ching ulus. Other Mongolian traditions used different terms for this empire: "Manj Chin uls" , "Daichin uls", "Manj uls", "Chin uls", "our Great Qing", "Emperor's state", whereas "China proper" was termed "Khyatad" or "Dundad uls". However, unlike in Chinese and Manchu languages, there was no exact counterpart for the name "Zhongguo" or "Dulimbai Gurun" in Mongolian during the Qing. The traditional Mongolian name for China is "Хятад" Khyatad, which only refers to the areas of native Chinese or China proper. Although the counterpart for the name "Zhongguo" or "Dulimbai Gurun" in Mongolian did appear as Dumdadu ulus since 1735 in the works of bannerman Lomi and Injannashi, both of them limited "Dumdadu ulus" to the area south of the Great Wall, essentially the same as the word "Khyatad" in meaning. Similarly, there did not exist a counterpart for the name "Zhongguo" or "Dulimbai Gurun" in the Tibetan language during the Qing. There are also derogatory names in some languages for the Qing, such as "манж Чин", "滿淸/满清" Mǎn Qīng, as used by anti-Qing, anti-Manchu revolutionaries.
Names in other languages
Apart from the English name of "China" or the "Chinese Empire", it is also known in similar names in other western languages such as Chine in French, Китаем in Russian, and Sinici Imperii in Latin, which are the standard translations for "China" or "Chinese Empire" in these languages. For example, in the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689, the first international treaty signed by the Qing, the term "Китайском" meaning "Chinese" was used to refer to the Qing side in the Russian version of the treaty, and the term "Imperium Sinicum" meaning "Chinese Empire" was used to refer to the Qing empire in the Latin version of the treaty. Sometimes the names for "Great Qing" also appeared in such treaties. For example, the term "Imperii Tai-tscim" meaning "Empire of the Great Qing" appeared in the Latin version of the Treaty of Kyakhta along with "Sinenses" meaning "Chinese". In Japanese-language version of some treaties during the Qing dynasty, the Kanji for the Qing state was also used, although it is not found in Chinese-language version of treaties during the Qing dynasty always appeared before the word for Qing
