Reading the library catalogue records for the book that, by the Taipei City Government's account, made 中國結 the common name in Taiwan turns up two editions a year apart: the Chinese 《中國結》, printed in Taipei in 1981, and the English Chinese Knotting, catalogued as an "English ed." of 1982. We found no record of an English edition in 1981. The knots are far older than the name. Two heritage registrations in Taiwan count thirteen basic knots, and Taipei City's registration places two of them on bronze and jade ornaments of the late Spring and Autumn period, close to 2,500 years ago. The meanings attached to the knots are glosses that sources word differently, and the only one we could trace to an institution is the Palace Museum in Beijing's, for the endless-knot pattern.
The name 中國結 spread with a book that ran to seven printings
The book was the work of 陳夏生 (Lydia Chen) and the Taipei publisher Echo (漢聲). A 2022 profile by the Taipei City Government's Department of Cultural Affairs, in its 文化快遞 bulletin, says it ran to seven printings before the end of 1981, and that it made 「中國結」 the name the public knew for traditional knotting. That is Taipei's account of Taiwan. We found no source for when the name reached mainland or Southeast Asian usage.
The craft had an older name. Changhua County's heritage record puts it in four words, 「中國結古稱絡子」: the Chinese knot was formerly called 絡子. By the profile's account, Chen built on a 1976 feature in two issues of Echo's English-language magazine, ECHO, and on the old objects she studied at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, where she worked from 1980. Taipei's profile gives her birth year as 1939; the library authority heading gives 1940.
The Chinese edition we read in the catalogue, a fifth printing from 1981 of 104 pages, fits a book that went through seven printings in its first year. The English edition's record gives Echo as publisher, Charles E. Tuttle as distributor, 116 pages, and the note "Issued also in Chinese ed." A 1994 printing, the fifth English edition, is catalogued as a reprint of the 1982 edition. Tuttle brought out a new edition in 2003 from Boston and Enfield, with a new subtitle, creative designs that are easy and fun, still at 116 pages.
A set of thirteen basic knots came out of a magazine survey
Search results offer lists of 8, 12, 19, 38 or 92 types of Chinese knot, and none says what makes a knot basic. The number with a source behind it is thirteen. Changhua's registration says that in 1974 and 1975 Echo's editors sought out older people who remembered how to tie knots and arrived at thirteen basic methods. Taipei's registration credits the magazine's 1976 diagrams of thirteen knots with reviving the learning of knotting in Taiwan.
Neither register prints the full thirteen. Changhua's names none. Taipei's names two as members of the set, the double coin knot (雙錢結) and the flat knot (平結). The book that would settle the list was not open to us.
Surviving knot objects reach back mostly to the Qing
The Taipei registration judges that most knotted objects to survive are Qing: 「如今所能見到傳世的繩結物件，大多是清代的文物」. It gives earlier dated examples too: the double coin and flat knots on late Spring and Autumn bronzes and jades, many knot designs on Han pictorial bricks, and a 萬字結 on the sash of a Northern Zhou bodhisattva at the Maijishan grottoes. From the Qing it names the red-floss button knot that topped the emperor's everyday hat, the 紅絨結頂.
We opened four museum records, and none of the four is cord. The National Palace Museum in Taipei holds a jade ornament in the shape of a knot (玉如意結飾), Ming to Qing, 10.5 cm long. The Palace Museum in Beijing holds a Qing earring, 金嵌珠宝点翠盘长式耳环, whose record says it is gilt copper throughout, that one end of its half-ring is a double-layer knot, and that it came as tribute from the Suzhou imperial textile works. It also holds a carved white-jade hair plank with the same pattern, 28.9 cm long, and a carved jadeite pendant in the knot's shape.
Traditional-script names slipped past our knot finder
Until 2 October 2026, our Chinese knot pattern guide could not find any of its ten knots by its Traditional name. We ran its own search code, and it found 0 of 10 on the English, Simplified and Traditional pages alike, including 盤長結, the example its Traditional page told readers to type. That page printed all ten knot names in Simplified script. The double coin knot was romanised sēung cín jié, which is neither Mandarin pinyin nor Cantonese jyutping, so shuangqianjie found nothing, and every pinyin query typed with tone marks failed. Its sources also dated the English edition to 1981 and placed Tuttle's 2003 printing in Tokyo and Rutland.
The fix of 2 October 2026 gives each knot both scripts. Each of the ten names, Simplified or Traditional, with or without the final character, finds its knot; so does pinyin with or without tones, and 雙錢結 reads shuāng qián jié. The book dates now follow the catalogue records. The tool still covers the double coin knot and still leaves out the flat knot.
The craft entered heritage registers in Changhua, Taipei and Shandong
Changhua County registered 中國結 as a traditional craft on 9 October 2013, with 施寳容 as preserver. Taipei City registered the craft under the name 繩結 on 18 January 2022, with Chen as preserver. Both entries are in the 國家文化資產網 database kept by Taiwan's Ministry of Culture.
On the mainland, Shandong's fifth provincial list, notice 鲁政字〔2021〕197号 of 21 November 2021, carries a joint entry for net-making and Chinese-knot weaving, 编织技艺（渔网编织技艺、中国结传统编织技艺）, listed under Qingdao's Chengyang district and Tancheng County. The national list, published in five batches from 2006 to 2021 and holding 1,557 items by the count on 中国非物质文化遗产网, gave no knotting item in five searches of its list on 2 October 2026.
South Korea's national register of intangible heritage has listed its own decorative knotting craft, 매듭장 (Maedeupjang), since 23 December 1968.
Two glosses for the endless knot travel side by side
The Palace Museum in Beijing describes the pattern on its Qing jadeite pendant in one sentence on its 翡红翠绿 exhibition page: 「盘肠为八吉祥图案之一，代表回环贯彻，一切通明，在清代使用的非常广泛」. Our translation: the pattern is one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols, stands for "looping round and running through, with everything made clear," and was very widely used in the Qing. The museum writes 盘肠, coiled intestines, where the knot's common name has 盘长, coiled and long, and its own earring record uses both: 盘长式 in the title, 盘肠结 in the description.
The gloss most popular sources repeat is eternity. We found no primary source for it, and none for the wealth that pages attach to the double coin knot or the love they attach to the 同心结. The museum's sentence belongs to one object, a pendant of green jadeite 2.5 by 3.5 cm, cut into the pattern it describes.
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