France

The Japanese word 仏蘭西 is composed of the kanji 仏 (read fu) meaning "France; Buddha", 蘭 (read ran) meaning "Orchid" and 西 (read su) meaning "West."

Country names were originally translated to Japanese using a phonetic translation to kanji. These kanji were selected mainly for their pronunciation and not necessarily for their meaning. Also France is commonly written in katakana as フランス. The pronunciation is exactly the same and so we have included both designs here.