# Japan

Pronunciation: US say "juh-PAN" /d͡ʒəˈpæn/; UK

## Proper noun

1. An archipelago and country of East Asia, lying off the eastern coast of the Asian mainland, with its capital and largest city at Tokyo.
   - Simple: An island country in East Asia. Its capital and biggest city is Tokyo.
   - _Japan stretches across a long chain of islands in the western Pacific._
   - _The high-speed rail network in Japan connects most of its major cities._

## Origin

First recorded in English as "Giapan" in 1577, the name was borrowed from Portuguese Japão (with possible influence from Dutch Japan), both from Malay Jepang, which came from Hokkien 日本 (Ji̍t-pún) and ultimately from Middle Chinese 日本, meaning "sun origin." The earliest European form was Marco Polo's Cipangu, from a Sinitic form meaning "Japan state."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/japan (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).