Why are some country names written in kanji and yet others are written in katakana?


I have seen kanji characters on maps referencing Germany, China, Italy, the
United States of America, and various other countries, but many are written in
katakana. Is there a reason for this?




About 150 years ago or so, Japanese people mainly used kanji names for foreign
countries. This is mainly because it was common to do so also in Chinese, by
which the Japanese culture was heavily influenced at that time. In those days,
Japanese people liked to create new kanji compounds for any new foreign
concepts. 電話 (telephone), 哲学 (philosophy) and so on are new words coined by
Japanese people of this era.

However, since we have katakana that can directly approximate the sounds of
any foreign words, Japanese people gradually stopped assigning new kanji for
each foreign word. As you may know, katakana is the primary method of
expressing foreign words in Japanese today.

For certain large and old countries, we still keep using the _initials_ of
kanji country names for convenience (eg, 米 = USA, 仏 = France, 露 = Russia). But
they are rarely spelled out (亜米利加, 仏蘭西, 露西亜) today, and new additions are
unlikely to happen any more. Note that official names of these countries are
in katakana (アメリカ, フランス, ロシア), and you should always use the katakana versions
wherever space-saving is not important.

Only five countries/regions are officially written with kanji in modern
Japanese. 日本 (Japan) itself, 中国/中華人民共和国 (China), 韓国/大韓民国 (Korea),
北朝鮮/朝鮮民主主義人民共和国 (DPRK) and 台湾/中華民国 (Taiwan).

See also:

  * [What is the rule in assigning kanji to a new word?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/39482/5010)
  * [How would "nihonium" be written in Japanese Kanji?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/41515/5010)

As you can see in the link, the story is very different in China, where people
are still coining a lot of new kanji words.




About 150 years ago or so, Japanese people mainly used kanji names for foreign
countries. This is mainly because it was common to do so also in Chinese, by
which the Japanese culture was heavily influenced at that time. In those days,
Japanese people liked to create new kanji compounds for any new foreign
concepts. 電話 (telephone), 哲学 (philosophy) and so on are new words coined by
Japanese people of this era.

However, since we have katakana that can directly approximate the sounds of
any foreign words, Japanese people gradually stopped assigning new kanji for
each foreign word. As you may know, katakana is the primary method of
expressing foreign words in Japanese today.

For certain large and old countries, we still keep using the _initials_ of
kanji country names for convenience (eg, 米 = USA, 仏 = France, 露 = Russia). But
they are rarely spelled out (亜米利加, 仏蘭西, 露西亜) today, and new additions are
unlikely to happen any more. Note that official names of these countries are
in katakana (アメリカ, フランス, ロシア), and you should always use the katakana versions
wherever space-saving is not important.

Only five countries/regions are officially written with kanji in modern
Japanese. 日本 (Japan) itself, 中国/中華人民共和国 (China), 韓国/大韓民国 (Korea),
北朝鮮/朝鮮民主主義人民共和国 (DPRK) and 台湾/中華民国 (Taiwan).

See also:

  * [What is the rule in assigning kanji to a new word?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/39482/5010)
  * [How would "nihonium" be written in Japanese Kanji?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/41515/5010)

As you can see in the link, the story is very different in China, where people
are still coining a lot of new kanji words.

