Iaponia

Iaponia is the Latin exonym traditionally used in European writing to refer to Japan. In classical and medieval Latin texts, Iaponia denotes the Japanese archipelago and, by extension, the country of Japan. The term is a Latinization of earlier transcriptions of the region heard by scholars and traders, and it appears in maps and encyclopedias from late antiquity through the early modern period.

In geographic literature, Iaponia as a label accompanied discussions of Japan’s geography, peoples, and customs as known to Western observers, often before intensive direct contact. Early cartographers placed Iaponia among the eastern lands beyond China and the Korean peninsula, with varying degrees of accuracy, and its defined boundaries shifted with expanding European knowledge.

Today, Iaponia survives mainly in historical or philological contexts. In contemporary usage, the Japanese names Nihon or Nippon are standard for the country, and in Western languages the common exonym is Japan; in Spanish, Japón, and in Portuguese, Japão. The Latin form persists in scholarly titles, Latin dictionaries, and discussions of historical texts.