What is the East Asian cultural sphere?
Q: What is the East Asian cultural sphere?
A: The East Asian cultural sphere, also known as the Sinosphere or Chinese sphere of influence, is a region in Asia that has many influences from Chinese culture.
Q: What countries make up the East Asian cultural sphere?
A: The area consists of the Greater China region (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan), Japan, Korea, Singapore, and sometimes Mongolia and Vietnam (depending on who you ask).
Q: How did China share its goods and ideas across Eurasia?
A: Since China had a very large trade network, it was able to easily share its goods and ideas across Eurasia.
Q: Did all countries in the East Asian cultural sphere use Chinese characters at one point?
A: Yes. At one point, all the countries wrote only using Chinese characters.
Q: Do any of these countries still write using Chinese characters today?
A: Only Chinese and Japanese speakers write using Chinese characters in everyday life. All other countries either created a new writing system (Korea and Mongolia) or replaced Chinese characters with a different already existing writing system (Mongolia again and Vietnam).
Q: Are there still traces of Chinese language present in other languages within this region?
A: Yes. Despite not writing with traditional Chinese characters anymore, the languages of each country still have many Chinese loanwords.
