How to Say "Jungle" in Chinese

叢林 / 丛林

cónglín

To say jungle in Chinese, use 叢林 / 丛林 (cónglín), a large, humid forest. If unsure, use 叢林 / 丛林. Wiktionary also lists 密林 (mìlín).

Meaning: large, undeveloped, humid forest (noun)

Ways to say it

“jungle” in Chinese
Chinese	Romanization (Wiktionary)
叢林 / 丛林	cónglín
密林	mìlín

叢林 is common in military language, as in 叢林戰, jungle warfare. For untouched old forest, 原始森林 literally means primitive forest.

叢 means a cluster or thicket and 林 (lín) means forest.

密林 (mìlín) stresses how dense and thick the trees are.

In pinyin it is cónglín, with a rising tone on both syllables.

In Chinese, the character 林 ('forest') is part of a linguistic pattern where doubling a character creates a collective meaning. For example, while 木 is a single 'tree', 林 is two trees and 森 is three trees, representing a deep forest.
The term 密林 was created through phono-semantic matching to mirror the English name 'Merlin'.
The word 叢 ('cluster') can be used to describe a dense crowd of people or a mass of objects, not just plants. It evokes a visual sense of things being packed tightly together regardless of what they are.

亚马逊雨林以生物丰富和茂密的丛林而闻名。(yà mǎ xùn yǔ lín yǐ shēng wù fēng fù hé mào mì de cóng lín ér wén míng)
The Amazon rainforest is known for its abundant wildlife and dense jungles.
上海已从一个充满传统园林的城市转变成了一个混凝土丛林。(shàng hǎi yǐ cóng yī gè chōng mǎn chuán tǒng yuán lín de chéng shì zhuǎn biàn chéng le yī gè hùn níng tǔ cóng lín)
Shanghai has transformed from a city filled with traditional gardens to a concrete jungle.

Sources

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