Қытайдың тарихи атауы – Катай

Alternative name for China in some languages

Cathay (/k//æ/'/θ//eɪ/ kaTHAY) is a historical name for China that was used in Europe. During the early modern period, the term Cathay initially evolved as a term referring to what is now Northern China, completely separate and distinct from China, which was a reference to southern China. As knowledge of East Asia increased, Cathay came to be seen as the same polity as China as a whole. The term Cathay became a poetic name for China. The name Cathay originates from the term Khitan , a para Mongolic nomadic people who ruled the Liao dynasty in northern China from 916 to 1125, and who later migrated west after they were overthrown by the Jin dynasty to form the Qara Khitai (Western Liao dynasty) for another century thereafter. Originally, this name was the name applied by Central and Western Asians and Europeans to northern China; the name was also used in Marco Polo's book on his travels in Yuan dynasty China (he referred to southern China as Mangi). Odoric of Pordenone (d. 1331) also writes about Cathay and the Khan in his travelbooks from his journey before 1331, perhaps 1321–1330.

The term Cathay came from the name for the Khitans. A form of the name Cathai is attested in a Uyghur Manichaean document describing the external people circa 1000. The Khitans refer to themselves as Qidan (Khitan small script: ; ), but in the language of the ancient Uyghurs the final n or ń became y, and this form may have been the source of the name Khitai for later Muslim writers. This version of the name was then introduced to medieval and early modern Europe via Muslim and Russian sources. The Khitans were known to Muslim Central Asia: in 1026, the Ghaznavid court (in Ghazna, in today's Afghanistan) was visited by envoys from the Liao ruler, he was described as a "Qatā Khan", i. e. the ruler of Qatā; Qatā or Qitā appears in writings of al Biruni and Abu Said Gardezi in the following decades. Words related to Khitay are still used in many Turkic and Slavic languages to refer to China. The ethnonym derived from Khitay in the Uyghur language for Han Chinese is considered pejorative by both its users and its referents, and the PRC authorities have attempted to ban its use.

As European and Arab travelers started reaching the Mongol Empire, they described the Mongol controlled Northern China as Cathay in a number of spelling variants. The name occurs in the writings of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (c. 1180–1252) (as Kitaia), and William of Rubruck (c. 1220–c. 1293) (as Cataya or Cathaia). Travels in the Land of Kublai Khan by Marco Polo has a story called "The Road to Cathay". Rashid al Din Hamadani, ibn Battuta, and Marco Polo all referred to Northern China as Cathay, while Southern China, ruled by the Song dynasty, was Mangi, Manzi, Chin, or Sin. The name for South China commonly used on Western medieval maps was Mangi, a term still used in maps in the 16th century.

In the English language, the word Cathay was sometimes used for China, although increasingly only in a poetic sense, until the 19th century, when it was completely replaced by China. Demonyms for the people of Cathay (i. e., Chinese people) were Cathayan and Cataian. The terms China and Cathay have histories of approximately equal length in English. Cathay is still used poetically. The Hong Kong flag bearing airline is named Cathay Pacific. One of the largest commercial banks of Taiwan is named Cathay United Bank. The novel Creation by Gore Vidal uses the name in reference to "those states between the Yangtze and the Yellow Rivers" as the novel is set in the fifth and sixth centuries B. C. Ezra Pound's Cathay (1915) is a collection of classical Chinese poems translated freely into English verse. In Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age stories (including the tales of Conan the Barbarian), the analog of China is called Khitai. In Warhammer Fantasy, a fantastical reimagination of the world used as a setting for various novels and games produced by Games Workshop, Grand Cathay is the largest human empire, situated in the far east of the setting and based on medieval China.

Cathay is more prevalent in proper terms, such as in Cathay Pacific Airways or Cathay Hotel. Cathay Bank is a bank with multiple branches throughout the United States and other countries. Cathay Cineplexes is a cinema operator in Singapore operated by mm2 Asia, acquired from the Cathay Organisation. Cathay United Bank and Cathay Life Insurance are, respectively, a financial services company and an insurance company, both located in Taiwan.