Junk (ship)

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A junk (Chinese: 船; pinyin: chuán) is a type of Chinese sailing ship characterized by a central rudder, an overhanging flat transom, watertight bulkheads, and a flat-bottomed design.^[1][2] They are also characteristically built using iron nails and clamps.^[1] Chinese junk could refer to one of many types of small coastal or river ships, usually serving as a cargo ship, pleasure boat, or houseboat, but also ranging in size up to large ocean-going vessels. There can be significant regional variations in the type of rig or the layout of the vessel.

Chinese junks were originally only fluvial and had square sails, but by the Song Dynasty (c. 960 to 1279), they adopted ocean-going technologies acquired from Southeast Asian k'un-lun po trade ships. Tanja sails and fully-battened junk rigs were introduced to Chinese junks by the 12th century CE.^[1][2]

Similar designs to the Chinese junk were also adopted by other East Asian countries, most notably Japan, where junks were used as merchant ships to trade goods with China and Southeast Asia.^[3]

Historically, the term "junk" (Portuguese: junco; Dutch: jonk; and Spanish: joanga),^[4] originally applied to the Javanese djong, large Southeast Asian ocean-going trading ships that differed significantly from the Chinese junk. In the colonial period, it came to refer to any medium- to large-sized ships of both Southeast Asian and Chinese origin (often hybrids of both by the 15th century), with or without the junk rig. It became exclusively applied to Chinese junks after the djongs became extinct by the 17th century.^[1][2][5]