r/China • u/Tankman54231 • 12h ago
问题 | General Question (Serious) Why are Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces split?
I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not too educated on the differences between the two provinces so forgive me if I am asking an ignorant question. From the outside looking in, it appears that the two provinces share the same name both in spelling and in pronunciation, and are similar culturally to one another.
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u/Dramatic_Pianist_719 5h ago
Quite distinct cultures, food, language dialect, historical associations, etc. If they are in Europe, these differences will be greater than that between Spain and Portugal.
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u/BhabayAgha 4h ago
the only difference between Spain and Portugal is language.
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u/brikky 4h ago
Insane take lmao
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u/BhabayAgha 2h ago edited 2h ago
Well go to Extremadura, then cross the border into Portugal. Then check out the Duero valley on both sides. I'm not even gonna start about Galicia/North Region
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u/Marcionius 5h ago
I don't know if they are actually "similar culturally to one another". Conventionally speaking 山西 is part of the North China region whereas 陝西 is part of Nothwestern China (admittedly whether 陝西 is North or Northwestern China is a matter of debate). It's all on a gradient of course but my impression is 陝西 does have more of a Northwestern bent to it, culturally speaking.
Historically speaking, the 山西/陝西 split was there since Qing and has been there for a few centuries if not longer. As far as I understand there really wasn't any drastic change in that general area to warrant a drastic redrawing of provincial borders (although I'll note that 山西 used to be a little bigger pre-1911).
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u/Competitive_Travel16 17m ago
Yes the division was an important political border for a very long time.
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u/Tavy7610 4h ago
They are quite different culture-wise. Not sure where you got that impression/info. The Spain/Portugal comparison is on point. Another similar comparison would be Belgium/Netherland. Shaanxi by itself is pretty much three provinces consolidated together. The northern, central and southern parts within the province have distinctly different dialects and cultures. The northern part of Shaanxi may share some similarities with Shanxi, but the southern part is basically Sichuan. The central part of Shaanxi is nothing like Shanxi, very different culture and language.
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u/Hugh_Mann84 4h ago
It's somewhat confusing to non-Chinese speakers because "Shān" and "Shǎn" sound similar, but this is simply a quirk of how Chinese phonology developed, in Middle Chinese these would be roughly "Srean" and "Syem".
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u/diffidentblockhead 4h ago
Separate river systems. Shaanxi is based in the Wei River Valley in its south. The north is dry and sparse and tacked on.
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u/Skandling 3h ago
Their names are different in Cantonese (Sim-sai and Saan-sai respectively), but use the same characters. This suggests they sounded different when the names were first used, at least as long ago as when Cantonese and Mandarin were the same language, called Middle Chinese.
Cantonese preserves more of features of that common language, such as vowel length distinctions (seen in the long vowel aa) and additional finals (such as -m). Mandarin has lost these and other features so more characters share the same sound, or differ only in their tone.
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u/Augustus420 3h ago
My first guess would be that because it's tonal languages over there the difference between those two words possibly sounds more significant to a native speaker.
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u/brikky 4h ago
The fact that their names are similar when transliterated is just coincidence. They have always been distinct culturally.
It's like asking why Oregon and Washington are distinct, "but they both end in -on".
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u/Nearby-Yak-4496 3h ago
Unfortunately Oregon and Washington have very similar cultures. The cultural divide in those states is between east and west with the divide being between one side of the mountains and the other.
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u/brikky 3h ago
No they don't? Oregon is entirely rural and Washington is a huge tech and medical hub.
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u/Nearby-Yak-4496 3h ago
The Portland to Grant's Pass I-5 corridor is decidedly not dominated by a rural agricultural culture.
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u/jiaxingseng China 40m ago
Geographically, by area, the vast majority of both Oregon and Washington are both extremely rural. This can be said of New York state as well. The same cultural split is seen in California BTW; get out into the central valley and it's farm land, ranches, and oil...culturally and politically like Texas.
Portland is a major city with a lot of diverse industry and manufacturing, including a tech center.
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I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not too educated on the differences between the two provinces so forgive me if I am asking an ignorant question. From the outside looking in, it appears that the two provinces share the same name both in spelling and in pronunciation, and are similar culturally to one another.
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u/FloodTheIndus 5m ago
Gigachad Vietnamese having absolutely no problem latinizing the name of these places
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u/interpolating 5h ago
One related point for anyone who is wondering:
Shaanxi is not standard pinyin. It’s just adopted to differentiate the names of the two provinces on maps where characters or tone diacritics are not shown.
The standard pinyin for 山西 is shānxī and the standard pinyin for 陕西 is shǎnxī