China has one of the world's oldest and continuous civilizations, consisting of states and cultures dating back more than six millennia. It has the world's longest continuously used written language system, and is the source of many major inventions, such as what the British scholar and biochemist Joseph Needham called the "four great inventions of Ancient China": paper, the compass, gunpowder, and printing.
Historically, China's cultural sphere has extended across East Asia as a whole, with Chinese religion, customs, and writing systems being adopted to varying degrees by neighbors such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The first evidence of human presence in the region was found at the Zhoukoudian cave and is one of the first known specimens of Homo erectus, now commonly known as the Peking Man, estimated to have lived approximately from 300,000 to 550,000 years ago. Noticeably, it is also known that the Peking Man was able to control and use fire.
The official name of China changed with each dynasty. The common name is Zhōngguó (中國 in traditional chinese or 中国 in simplified chinese). This translates as "central nation" or (traditionally) as "middle kingdom".
The name Zhōngguó first appeared in the Classic of History (6th century BC), and was used to refer to the late Zhou Dynasty, as they believed that they were the "center of civilization."
