Kanji is a term used to refer to the logographic characters used in the Japanese writing system. Synonyms for kanji include "hanzi" in Chinese, "hanja" in Korean, and "chữ Hán" in Vietnamese. Hanzi, meaning "Chinese characters," are the logographs used in China and Taiwan, while hanja is the Korean term for Chinese characters. Chữ Hán, meaning "Han characters," were historically used in Vietnam for written Chinese, but have largely been replaced by the Vietnamese alphabet. Additionally, kanji can also be referred to simply as "Chinese characters" or "ideographic characters" due to the fact that they were initially adopted from Chinese characters and represent words or concepts through their visual appearance rather than phonetics.