Why some country names are written in kanji and not in katakana?

If you’re studying Japanese, you’ve probably come across that sometimes country names are written in kanji and not in katakana.

When writing in katakana, the “Gairaigo” (外来語) or “borrowed words” that come from a foreign language are being applied.

However, there are also “Ateji” (当て字) which are words written with kanji where the meaning of the kanji is not taken into account and only phonetic sounds are used. In some cases of Ateji , the words borrow the meaning of the kanji and not the readings. On the other hand, there are cases where these “Ateji” borrow both the reading and the meaning of the kanji.

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For example, both the United Kingdom and England are known in Japanese as “Igirisu” (イギリス). The old name is Eikoku (英国). He ei (英) means something like “outstanding” or “excellent” and it is only for its phonetics not for its meaning and it is still used to refer to the English language: ego (英語)

Taking into account its sound, countries such as France are written “Furansu” (仏蘭西) , India as “Yindu” and Germany as “doitsu” (独逸).

Although in many cases these aforementioned countries, like almost all countries in the world, can be found written in katakana as フランス France, インド India and ドイツ Germany.

And we say “almost all the countries in the world” because some Asian countries that use Chinese kanji characters are written only with Japanese kanji. For example, For some Asian countries only the kanji version is used. For example, China is Chuugoku (中国) and not Chaina (チャイナ), Taiwan is (台湾 ), Kankoku (韓国 – South Korea), and Honkon (香港 – Hong Kong.