Nine Provinces
The term Nine Provinces or Nine Regions (Chinese: 九州; pinyin: Jiǔ Zhōu), is used in ancient Chinese histories to refer to territorial divisions or islands during the Xia and Shang dynasties and has now come to symbolically represent China. "Province" is the word used to translate zhou (州) – since before the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), it was the largest Chinese territorial division.