list of Chinese language country name abbreviations

Question

In watching CCTV-4 news, I frequently see country names abbreviated but miss the leading character before I can look it up carefully (I know the major ones). Is there a list anywhere of those standard abbreviations (most of the form X国)?

There seem to have been other patterns for abbreviations or short-form names of countries in the past. Australia was 濠州 for instance. 国 is closer to country and 州 is closer to state. — hippietrail, Feb 10 '14 at 20:34
@user58955: I found a few variants of the same which have been used in either or both of Japanese and Korean: 豪州, 濠州, 濠洲. I don't know which country used it first. — hippietrail, Feb 11 '14 at 08:58

deutschZuid · Answer 1 · 2014-02-10T20:25:27.550

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I think this is a fairly exhaustive list of currently existing countries. This does not encompass unabbreviated country names that end with 国 (e.g., 孟加拉国):

Common

中国 (Zhōngguó) - P. R. China or R. O. China depending on context
法国 (Fǎguó) - France
德国 (Déguó) - Germany
泰国 (Tàiguó) - Thailand
英国 (Yīngguó) - England / UK
美国 (Měiguó) - USA
韩国 (Hánguó) - South Korea
俄国 (Éguó) - Russia
寮国 (Liáoguó) - Laos (chiefly Taiwan, the term is dated in mainland China. Use 老挝 (Lǎowō).)

Rare

奥国 (Àoguó) - Austria
葡国 (Púguó) - Portugal
墨国 (Mòguó) - Mexico
加国 (Jiāguó) - Canada

edited Feb 10 '14 at 20:25

answered Feb 09 '14 at 23:02

deutschZuid

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And 寮国 for Laos in Taiwan. Mainland China used this term before as well. – user58955 Feb 09 '14 at 23:14
hmm.. I am not so sure if it's an abbreviation though? Otherwise it would definitely warrant inclusion here. I am contradicting myself here as this would rule out 泰国 as well.. hmm. – deutschZuid Feb 09 '14 at 23:16
I will include it for the time being. – deutschZuid Feb 09 '14 at 23:21
(More) rare ones: 加拿大 - 加国, 西班牙 - 西国, 墨西哥 - 墨国. – Inglis Baderson Feb 10 '14 at 05:55
@deutschZuid Arguably 泰国 is short for 泰王国 and 寮国 for 寮人民民主共和国. More seriously, I don't think 中国 is an abbreviation... – user58955 Feb 10 '14 at 08:34
I just travelled through China to Mongolia and heard 蒙国 all the time. – hippietrail Feb 10 '14 at 08:45
中国 is now an abbreviation though. – amateur Feb 10 '14 at 10:34
@amateur it depends what you are referring to. It's an abbreviation for PRC or ROC, but is not an abbreviation for "China". – congusbongus Feb 10 '14 at 14:08
@hippietrail I can't seem to attest 蒙国 at all. I just can't imagine a two character country name being 'abbreviated' to another two character country name. 墨国 and 加国 are attestable, but 西国 is a bit harder to attest due to its name conflict with an ancient Chinese city state. – deutschZuid Feb 10 '14 at 20:17
@deutschZuid: 1. You're right. Seems I was hearing "méngguó" but they were saying "ménggǔ". 2. You're trying to force a strict interpretation of "abbreviation" rather than a generous reading of a naive question where the OP might not know all the best terminology. Something like "short-form country names" works. As does accepting degenerate cases which don't require abbreviating since they're already in the exact form of an abbreviation. – hippietrail Feb 10 '14 at 20:28
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@hippietrail You are right about me trying to enforce these rules even if I wasn't completely aware of what I was doing. I believe I have since relaxed the rules. I am including pretty much every two character country names suffixed with 国 as long as they are attestable. – deutschZuid Feb 10 '14 at 20:33
As a native speaker I am too used to the two-character country names to find them interesting. Instead, the rule behind the long names with 'transliteration + 国' format is amusing, i.e. why 孟加拉国 sounds natural while 西班牙国 or 澳大利亚国 does not. (I am not asking you to answer this:)) – NS.X. Feb 10 '14 at 21:51
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@deutschZuid Usually what you read in the news is that the usual name of the country appears first, such as 加拿大, then it might be abbreviated to 加国 in the subsequent occurrences. 西国 wouldn't be a problem in this context. – user58955 Feb 10 '14 at 23:47
大馬 for Malaysia. – Flux Jun 01 '19 at 00:38
I've seen 紐國 used for New Zealand on the front page of a newspaper. – Flux Jun 01 '19 at 00:39
@Flux Which newspaper? That'd be the first I've heard of it having lived in NZ for 25 years. Of course my main source of Chinese here is from the local Chinese community, not worldwide, hence my question. – deutschZuid Jun 03 '19 at 22:25
@deutschZuid 星洲日報 (a Malaysian newspaper). "紐國" is short for "紐西蘭". A quick search for "紐國" on Google returns lots of results, mostly of articles from Taiwanese newspapers. – Flux Jun 04 '19 at 00:33
@Flux Very interesting. Thanks. – deutschZuid Jun 04 '19 at 22:43

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 11 '14 at 04:03

Most countries can be abbreviated by the first character in their name especially when describing the relations between two or more countries. There are some exceptions and many will be duplicates.

For example:

印 can refer to both 印度 India and 印尼 Indonesia; short for 印度尼西亚.
伊 can refer to 伊朗 Iran and 伊拉克 Iraq. 两伊 means Iran-Iraq.
新 can refer to 新加坡 Singapore and 新西兰 New Zealand.
巴 can refer to 巴基斯坦 Pakistan, 巴勒斯坦 Palestine, 巴拿马 Panama, 巴拉圭 Paraguay and 巴布亚新几内亚 Papua New Guinea.

So you can put two countries together + 战争 War, + 冲突 Conflict, + 关系 Relations, etc.

Examples:

以巴冲突 Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
两伊战争 Iran-Iraq War.
中日关系 Sino-Japanese relations.

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 11 '14 at 10:04

We only refer to some countries this way:

德国 (Deutsch)，法国 (France)，美国 (America), 英国 (England), 俄国 (Russia) - these countries were the first countries to visit China. Maybe at that time people began to learn English and translated the name in a different way.

Also 俄国 is more for referring to Russia before Soviet Union (苏联). Current Russia we call 俄罗斯.

For 韩国 (south Korea), it's because Koreans call their country 大韓民國.

For 泰国, I'm not sure.

For other countries' names, we try to use the pronunciation for translation:

Australia - 澳大利亚, 澳洲
Austria - 奥地利
Spain - 西班牙
Canada - 加拿大
Portugal - 葡萄牙 ...

list of Chinese language country name abbreviations

3 Answers3

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