thumb|Tray of modern one-yuan ([[Renminbi) coins.]]
thumb|"[[Silver Dragon (coin)|Silver Dragon" yuan coin, 1904.]]
thumb|5-yuan note from a private bank, 1906.
thumb|5-yuan note of the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China (1941)]]
thumb|Taiwanese note for 10,000 yuan (1949)
The yuan ( ; sign: ¥; ; ) is the base unit of a number of former and present-day currencies throughout China.
A yuan () is also known colloquially as a kuai (; originally a lump of silver). One yuan is divided into 10 jiao () or colloquially mao (). One jiao is divided into 10 fen ().
Modern usage
The term "yuan" usually refers to the primary unit of account of the renminbi (RMB), the currency system of the People's Republic of China. RMB banknotes start at one yuan and go up to 100 yuan. It is also used as a synonym of that currency, especially in international contexts – the ISO 4217 standard code for renminbi is CNY, an abbreviation of "Chinese yuan". (A similar case is the use of the terms sterling to designate British currency and pound for the unit of account.)
The symbol for the yuan (元) is also used in Chinese to refer to the currency units of Japan (yen) and Korea (won), and is used to translate the currency unit dollar as well as some other currencies; for example, the United States dollar is called Meiyuan () in Chinese, and the euro is called Ouyuan (). When used in English in the context of the modern foreign exchange market, the Chinese yuan (CNY) refers to the renminbi (RMB), which is the official currency used in mainland China.
Etymology, writing and pronunciation
In Standard (Mandarin) Chinese, 圓 / 圆 yuán literally means "round". During the Qing dynasty and early Republic the yuan was a large, thick round coin made of silver, modelled on the Mexican silver dollar.
The word is usually written with the Chinese character , literally meaning "beginning" but used as an abbreviation for 圓. On notes, coins and documents such as contracts, to make it less easy to alter it is mostly written with the coin's original name, 圓 / 圆. In international contexts, '¥' or 'RMB' (abbr. for renminbi) is often prefixed to the amount (e.g. RMB¥100 or ¥100元).
Alternative words
In many parts of China, the unit of renminbi is sometimes colloquially called kuài (, literally "piece") rather than yuán. The pinyin term kuài has also been written as "quay" in English language publications.
In Cantonese, widely spoken in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong and Macau, the yuan, jiao, and fen are called mān (), hòuh (), and sīn (), respectively. Sīn is a loan word from the English cent.
Related currency units
The Chinese character is also used to denote the base unit of the Hong Kong dollar, the Macanese pataca, and the New Taiwan dollar. The unit of a New Taiwan dollar is also referred to in Standard Chinese as yuán and written as 元 or 圓.
The names of the Korean and Japanese currency units, won and yen respectively, are cognates of Mandarin yuán, also meaning "round" in the Korean and Japanese languages.
The Japanese yen (en) was originally also written with the kanji (Chinese) character , which was simplified to with the promulgation of the Tōyō kanji in 1946.
The Korean won (won) used to be written with the hanja (Chinese) character from 1902 to 1910, and some time after World War II. It is now written exclusively in Hangul, as , in both North and South Korea.
The Mongolian tögrög () means "round" in Mongolian language.
Early history
The yuan was derived from the Spanish dollar or Mexican dollar, worth eight Spanish reales and popularly known as the piece-of-eight. This was effectively the world's first international currency, beginning to circulate widely in east and southeast Asia in the late 18th century due to Spanish presence in the region, principally the Philippines and Guam.
The Chinese yuan was subdivided into 1,000 cash (), 100 cents or fen (), and 10 jiao (, cf. dime). It replaced copper cash and various silver ingots called sycees. The sycees were denominated in tael. The yuan was valued at 0.72 tael, (or 7 mace and 2 candareens).
Banknotes were issued in yuan denominations from the 1890s by several local and private banks, along with the Imperial Bank of China and the "Hu Pu Bank" (later the "Ta-Ch'ing Government Bank"), established by the Imperial government. During the Imperial period, banknotes were issued in denominations of 1, 2 and 5 jiao, 1, 2, 5, 10, 50 and 100 yuan, although notes below 1 yuan were uncommon.
The earliest issues were silver coins produced at the Guangdong mint, known in the West at the time as Canton, and transliterated as Kwangtung, in denominations of 5 cents, 1, 2 and 5 jiao and 1 yuan. Other regional mints were opened in the 1890s producing similar silver coins along with copper coins in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 cash.
In the Republic of China, the common English name is the "New Taiwan dollar" but banknotes issued between 1949 and 1956 used "yuan" as the transliteration. More modern notes lack any transliteration.
See also
- Chinese customs gold unit
- Ancient Chinese coinage
- Digital yuan
- Japanese Yen