Why are they called china plates?

Answer 1

A tour of the well-known ceramics term "China" turns out to be quite a circuitous trip, beginning of course with the word's obvious origin: China.

Europeans gave the name to the hard and highly valued bowls, plates and other decorative wares that they imported from China over the span of hundreds of years. The Chinese originally developed the technique more than a thousand years ago and were its sole makers until the 18th century.

As far as ceramics are concerned, china was once synonymous with porcelain. Both are made when kaolin is mixed with petuntse two forms of decomposed granite that fuse together in a very hot kiln to produce the translucent clayware. If not china or porcelain, a ceramic is known as pottery, which is opaque.

Europeans discovered how to make china in the early 1700s, and after that, china was no longer strictly a Chinese affair. Time and travel have in turn only diluted the meaning of the word. David Lackey, owner of David Lackey Antiques in Houston, Texas, says that today the word "china" is often used generically.