The term
Nine Provinces or "nine regions" 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. Although the current definition of the Nine Provinces can be dated to the
Spring and Autumn and
Warring States periods, it was not until the
Eastern Han dynasty that the Nine Provinces were treated as actual
administrative regions.